We Don't Use Exosomes

Hello, this is Dr. Joshua Schachter. I'm a board certified orthopedic surgeon and regenerative specialist here in Wichita Falls, Texas, at Pinnacle Integrative Orthopedics and Sports Medicine. Earlier today, I was talking to a friend who is interested in coming and having some regenerative therapies for his shoulder. And he'd mentioned that he'd had amniotic fluid injections for his shoulder a number of years ago. And this brought up to me the subject of what do we want to use as the most appropriate regenerative option for our patients? Now, here at Pinnacle Integrative Orthopedics and Sports Medicine in Wichita Falls, Texas, our goal is to take our patients with joint pain to the peak of wellness. And one of our most powerful methods is stem cell treatments for your joint pain. This is a method where we take your bone marrow and we spin it down using a centrifuge to isolate the most active portions of your stem cells and then we inject those into your painful joint or tendon. These stem cells then release materials that cause healing in the local t, release materials that are a very potent anti inflammatory, and they work for a long period of time. But what we have to have in a stem cell treatment is live, viable cells. And so one of the most important parts of regenerative therapy is that we use cells that are healthy, that are not going to cause a rejection or a reaction in our patients. And the safest option for you is, of course, your own tissue. And so this is the most effective method for stem cell treatment. When we think about amniotic fluid, we think about Wharton's jelly, we think about birth tissue products, we think about exosomes like bovine stem cells or from another type of animal. We talk about cord blood stem cells. All of these are treatments which are not approved by the fda. First of all, in the United States, they are not approved for us to inject into a joint, certainly. And they are all classified as experimental and are technically not allowed to be performed in the United States if we want to be purely following the rules. So when we talk about actual approved methods which provide you with viable cells, the problems with these types of exosomes or amniotic fluid, Wharton's jelly, these other substances that companies have marketed to us, is that they don't provide us with a high volume of viable cells. Remember, in a stem cell treatment, the most important part of the treatment is that the cell is viable, that the cell can release its materials into your tissues and into your joint to help you to heal, to regenerate your tissues, to cause a decrease in your overall inflammation in that joint or tissue. And if we're using cells and tissues that are not alive or viable, then basically we're just injecting a foreign material into the body that's no better than a steroid, that's no better than a gel application. And so for us to understand that to actually use stem cells, we need live, viable cells. And here at Pinnacle Integrative Orthopedics and Sports Medicine in downtown Wichita Falls, our goal is to get you feeling your best using the best methods available. And so that's why we feel strongly that using your own stem cells is the best option to prevent painful and costly surgeries, to keep you off of these pain medications and to get you back into your life and into.