Callers and questions
Part 1
- Paul: Reported ongoing improvement after lumbar injections following surgeries at L4–L5 and L5–S1; a testimonial rather than a treatment question.
- Ron: Can PRP or stem cell injections repair a supraspinatus tear? Also discussed ibuprofen, Aleve, and pain when reaching upward.
- Adriana: Are there stem cell treatments for general health and longevity when someone has no specific injury or illness? Discussed her mother’s difficulty exercising because of pain.
- Richard: Can injections help an ankle sprain that still hurts months later? Is an MRI or CT needed, and is it still an appropriate time to consider treatment?
Part 2
- Barry: Can regenerative treatment help sciatica in people aged 50 and older? How has treatment developed, and is there a reason to travel abroad?
- Jill: How are a patient’s own cells harvested and prepared? Can they be grown or stored, used the same day, or used to treat multiple areas?
- Salem [name as captioned]: How do bone marrow and Wharton’s jelly differ for meniscus-related knee problems? Is one more effective, and is bone marrow harvesting painful?
- Written question: An 84-year-old with type 2 diabetes and three femur operations asked about leg pain, numbness, and difficulty walking and exercising.
Part 1
Opening
Announcer: Are you living in pain? Is it joint pain or muscle pain? If so, stay tuned. Welcome to Living Pain-Free with Dr. Marc Darrow, MD, from the Stem Cell Institute in West Los Angeles. This is the program that can give you effective solutions for the pain you’ve been living with. Dr. Darrow is a medical doctor, board-certified through his studies at UCLA. And Dr.
Darrow uses stem cell and platelet-rich plasma to heal your body. He teaches about the use of stem cells, PRP, and prolotherapy. Today’s program could open up a new life without pain for you. To speak with Dr. Darrow, call 866870 KRLA. That’s 866-870-5752. Ask for a copy of Dr. Darrow’s book, Stem Cell and Platelet Therapy. Regenerate, Don’t Operate. Now, here’s Dr. Marc Darrow, MD.
Dr. Marc Darrow: Hello there and thank you so much for listening to the show Living Pain Free. It’s all about how you can avoid a surgery and use injections of stem cells and PRP or exosomes to help heal the body instead of cutting tissue out. We regrow the tissue. And the book that I have that I’m going to send out to you for free is stem cell and platelet therapy regenerate don’t operate and the byline is by Suzanne Somers and she wrote the foreword to the book she was a patient her family have all been patients and wonderful wonderful people and actually we have a caller coming in Paul from Chicago about a low back.
Can we talk to Paul, please?
Paul: Improvement after lumbar injections following two back surgeries
Dr. Marc Darrow: Paul,
Paul: Mr. Marc, how are you, my friend?
Dr. Marc Darrow: I’m living it up, man. How’s Chicago today?
Paul: Chicago’s great, my friend. It’s doing really well.
Dr. Marc Darrow: Good time of the year, huh?
Paul: Yes, it is. Yeah, just calling to sing your praises. Continuing to do extremely well post lumbar injection from you.
Dr. Marc Darrow: Okay.
Paul: and yeah, just really wanted to continue to promote this idea of, you know, whether you’ve had surgery or not, stem cell injections, particularly for me into the lumbar area, has been life-alteringly positive. And you spoke to it just briefly before I hopped on, which was the ability to build tissue, which has been remarkably better since having the injections, you know, enabled me to get back to a different level of capacity of working out. and it it’s kind of propelled itself going forward. you know, year over year, this continues to get better.
So, just can’t be more grateful, my friend. Very appreciative.
Dr. Marc Darrow: Oh, that’s so sweet of you. So sweet. The call from Chicago. Can you believe it? I love it. But we do get people from all over the world that come in and I’ve been doing this for almost 30 years. So I’m sort of the old man in the business. Help get it off the ground and probably have done more of these than anybody else on the on the earth.
So I love doing it. Every single patient, every injection I do is a little bit different. So it’s always interesting. Everybody has their own issues. And Paul, did you have a surgery in your back before we injected you?
Paul: I did, you know, and in a perfect world, you know, obviously I wish I would have met you prior. but I didn’t I wasn’t aware. And I think that’s why this program is so important because there’s so many people that are not aware of this type of therapy. I unfortunately did not, you know, succumb to or or become aware of this until after my second spine surgery.
I’ve had two lumbar spine surgeries, one at L4–L5 and one of L5–S1.
Paul: But the the recovery postsurgically and and more importantly, my ability to regenerate and rebuild tissue has just been incredible. And so, this is this is an a very important component of my recovery process and has enabled me to get back to things that the surgeons did not think I would ever get back to. So that’s a really really neat part of
Dr. Marc Darrow: So grateful that we could help you even post surgery and that’s important for people to know.
Paul: Yes
Dr. Marc Darrow: I assume your surgeries helped you somewhat but not all of them do and some make people worse and whatever it is the most important thing is to do a good examination on the patient and be able to find where the pain is coming from. Unfortunately, surgeons typically, and I was in the surgical track in my training, and I was I was on my route to being an orthopedic surgeon until I had a orthopedic professor of mine operate on my shoulder.
This is back when I was in medical school. And it got much, much, much worse. And at that point, I was thinking surgery was not the answer for me as a doctor. And I learned about this. I self-injected myself. You probably know the story, Paul. And I awaken the next morning 100% pain-free with full range of motion in my shoulder. So, I also am very grateful for regenerative medicine.
And today it’s morphed into stem cells and PRP platelet-rich plasma using exosomes and other things to help heal the tissue and actually regrow tissue
Dr. Marc Darrow: Which a lot of people think you can’t do but it’s been shown sometimes we’ve done x-rays after someone’s had these procedures and we can see new cartilage growth and we’re made out of collagen. and it’s the structural protein of the body and cartilage is mostly collagen. So yes, you can grow back things we inject everywhere in the body not just like your back was done Paul but you know shoulders, knees, hips, toes, fingers, necks, backs, muscle tears, ligament tears, tendon tears, all of that anywhere in the body.
So, God bless you, man. I’m glad that you called in. I’m glad you’re doing so much better. And I hope to see you out here someday. And
Paul: You know, I will. I’ll be back as always. Appreciate you.
Dr. Marc Darrow: God bless you. Good work.
Paul: Thank you so much.
Ron: Rotator cuff tear, shoulder pain, and tissue repair
Dr. Marc Darrow: So, we’ve got another caller waiting here. Ron from La Crescenta. Ron, can you hear me? This Dr. Marc Darrow.
Ron: Yes, sir. I can hear you.
Dr. Marc Darrow: Have you got a question for me? anything I can do for you?
Ron: Yes. okay. it’s a torn rotator cuff my right shoulder. I went to the doctor. They did a ultrasound imaging thing there and he also sent me out for an MRI. So, there’s definitely a tear
Ron: In one of the tendons, the one that starts with supra. I can’t remember the entire name of the tendon.
Dr. Marc Darrow: Yeah, you you hit the nail on the head. It’s the supraspinatus.
Ron: Yeah. He said
Dr. Marc Darrow: And that tendon of the four rotator cuff tendons in the shoulder is the most commonly torn. We see a torn with almost everybody that we look at even if they don’t have pain. So we have to get very clear Ron tears don’t necessarily cause pain. As we age the natural aging process is for things to break down and dry out and we have tears sometimes all over our body.
I have I have three rotator cuff tears, actually two rotator cuff tears in my right shoulder and a labral tear, but I don’t have any pain at all. And I took a golf lesson last night indoors. I’m going to go play golf today, which is a very right shoulder dependent sport for me. And I hit the ball as hard as I can.
And I am pain-free. I did have a failed surgery, but this stuff saved me. and self-injected. I self-inject the front of my body. I’ve done both of my shoulders, both my knees, both my elbows, my right wrist. I’ve had other doctors do my neck and back and ribs. my life as a gymnast when I was young morphed into every sport I could do, as hard as I could do.
So, I still get injured, but I keep going and I keep self-injecting. I’m thinking back, I haven’t injected anything for a few years now. I’ve been holding on pretty well. No major injuries. So, tell me more about yours. Are you able to do sports and whatever with your shoulder?
Ron: Well, the the movement that gets me is like I’m reaching out upwards like you like you’re reaching for a cabinet door.
Dr. Marc Darrow: Yep.
Ron: And for some reason that just gets me. I could go backwards.
Ron: Yeah. holding I could hold 100 pounds as long as my arm is just straight by my side.
Dr. Marc Darrow: Yeah.
Ron: But going up and especially up and forward ouchies.
Dr. Marc Darrow: Yeah. And that makes sense with the sup with if it is the supraspinatus area
Dr. Marc Darrow: And like I said that’s the most common area where we get tendinitis, tendinosis or tears that helps lift the arm up the first 15°. So yeah, that hurts when your arms are outstretched like that. But we’d have to look. I’d like to see it. I’d like to touch it. The main thing is touching.
Dr. Marc Darrow: I do use an ultrasound to look at it, but the main thing is finding the pain generator, which is the exam. So if doctors don’t do an examination and they just treat based on an image, they’re making a mistake. Because a lot of people are walking around with tears, rotator cuff tears in their shoulders, meniscal tears in their knees, labral tears in their hips, and they don’t even know it.
And many studies have been done that use people to be imaged and we find that there’s tears and they say they don’t have any pain. So, it’s very difficult. The hardest part of my job, Ron, is educating people that they are not their image. If you understand what I mean, pain doesn’t come from an image. It comes from the body.
Dr. Marc Darrow: And the images often, even MRIs can be wrong. They’re overly sensitive. They can show sometimes we’ll have people come in that have an ACL rupture in their knee. And the first thing I do is remove the blood or remove the fluid if there is fluid. If it’s not red, meaning blood, they don’t have an ACL rupture typically because those bleed like the dickens.
And then some people come in and they say they’ve had a surgeon go in because the MRI showed an ACL rupture and the surgeon goes in to repair it and it’s not ruptured because MRIs can be overly sensitive. So we have to be really really smart as patients, as doctors to find the pain generators and not just look at an image to see what’s going on because images can be wrong.
Number one, and number two, images do not correlate with pain. That’s been proven.
Dr. Marc Darrow: So have you done anything, Ron, to have your shoulder treated?
Ron: I do ibuprofen just to kind of alleviate the pain. Well, now do the PRP injections or stem cell injections actually repair the tissue, repair the tendon?
Dr. Marc Darrow: Yes and no. but first before I get to that, I want to get to ibuprofen. Ibuprofen is a very good anti-inflammatory and it makes you feel better,
Dr. Marc Darrow: But it blocks the regeneration of tissue. So, in order for the tissue to heal, like let’s say you sprain an ankle and it hurts like heck. If you take an anti-inflammatory, it blocks the inflammation, you feel better, but then the fibroblasts, which are cells in the body, don’t get to the area to regenerate the tissue. Fibroblast are little cells that grow tissue.
All right? So,
Dr. Marc Darrow: And when we do stem cells or PRP, we sequester fibroblast from the blood. That’s one of the ways it heals. And then on to your question. So, by the way, I stay away from ibuprofen
Dr. Marc Darrow: For that reason.
Dr. Marc Darrow: Tylenol is a better medicine to cut the pain and it does nothing to block the healing.
Ron: Oh, okay.
Ron: I can always switch to that. Or Aleve. I also have Aleve around.
Dr. Marc Darrow: Aleve is also an anti-inflammatory just like ibuprofen. So, I’d stay away from that.
Ron: Tylenol. Well, that was my thing. I was I wanting I would like to repair the actual tear in the in the tendon and I was hoping I was just wondering if PRP or stem cell injections really do actually repair the tissue.
Dr. Marc Darrow: It’s a great question. Now, I have a I have a question for you before I answer that. Okay.
Dr. Marc Darrow: If I if I examine your shoulder, I do an ultrasound, I see that rotator cuff tear in your supraspinatus, and then I do an physical examination and I touch your shoulder and I tell you your pain is not anywhere near the supraspinatus tendon. Do you need that tendon repaired? The one that’s not causing the pain?
Ron: Doesn’t Wouldn’t sound like it. No, doesn’t sound like it.
Dr. Marc Darrow: No, you hit the nail on the head. It doesn’t. So, the question that you have is does peer pure stem cells repair? It’s kind of irrelevant. I know everybody wants a perfect body and they don’t want any tears, but that’s not relevant. It can repair it, but it may not be the issue.
Adriana: Stem cells, general health, and longevity
Dr. Marc Darrow: Ron, thank you so much for your questions. It’s amazing. I’m going to give out the phone number to my office where people can get a free copy of my book, Stem Cell and Platelet Therapy, Regenerate Don’t Operate. And the phone number is 800-300-9300. That’s 800-300-9300. You can also email me through my website which is www.stemcellinstitute.com. stemcellinstitute.com and there’s a page every actually every page has a spot to email me.
I answer all my emails every day. And if you’re listening and you want to talk to me live in the studio right now, the phone number is 866-870-5752. Ron, God bless you and thank you for calling. We’re going to go to Adriana from LA. Hello Adriana, how are you?
Adriana: Hi Marc, I’m great. How are you?
Dr. Marc Darrow: I am living it up. It’s a wonderful day and I’m about to go hit some golf balls, which makes me happy.
Adriana: Well, that sounds lovely. I just finished a workout class, so I’m feeling pumped.
Dr. Marc Darrow: I love it. Yeah, exercise to me is the most amazing thing on the planet because it gives us endorphins. Instead of having to go use a drug, we get it from ourselves.
Adriana: There you go. Absolutely. Well, I have a question for you, Marc.
Dr. Marc Darrow: Yes.
Adriana: So, you know, I’ve heard about stem cell therapies to help with a lot of different conditions, people with diseases and ailments, injuries and the like. But what if you don’t necessarily have any of those things, and you just are interested in health and longevity? what are some of the types of treatments I should look out for?
Dr. Marc Darrow: There are a lot of doctors that do IV stem cells and I have patients that come in and have done that for anti-aging, you might say, or for general health or if they have pain in their body. And what all of them have told me so far is that they felt good for a few days and then it went back to whatever it was they had before.
So, I don’t have an answer on that. We don’t do IV and I don’t have that much experience. I know it works pretty well if someone has a rheumatological disease like
Dr. Marc Darrow: You know, you know where they’re inflamed, let’s say their shoulder or their fingers or something like that, rheumatoid arthritis flare, something like that. If they get a IV of stem cells, it can quiet that down and have it go away. doesn’t get rid of the disease process. So, I don’t have all the answers on that. all the people I know that have had it said it it didn’t really do much for them.
I use it for orthopedics and it works real well on that.
Dr. Marc Darrow: So I don’t know if I answered your question. To me,
Dr. Marc Darrow: The best when you’re saying what how does stem cells relate to health? Are they the best things to get healthy? I would say the best thing to get healthy is what you just did before that you called the show. You know, you worked out.
Adriana: Yeah.
Dr. Marc Darrow: And you brought endorphins which are healing. And the other thing for everybody is a low-carb diet.
Dr. Marc Darrow: You know, that’s the most I think that is the number one thing for health is cut back on what you’re eating. Stick to proteins and vegetables and stay away from carbs. And I think that’s the number one thing because if we can keep our carbs low, our insulin is low, our hemoglobin A1C is low, people with type 2 diabetes heal themselves, and there is supposedly added years to life.
So, no one wants to do that. They want to hack the system. They want they want some magical potion or peptides or something like that, which I’m not against. I’m not against anything. If you like it, do it. But I mean, the main thing is diet number one, exercise number two. Many of my patients say they can’t exercise because they’ve got pain in their body and they’re way overweight.
And I say,
Adriana: Actually, what my mom says, you know, you’re bringing up some points about that, you know, my mom has some inflammation. She’s supposed to go see a rheumatologist soon. but she feels like she can’t work out because of her pain or the sickness that you know she’s in suffering.
Dr. Marc Darrow: Yeah.
Adriana: Well, again again working out working out is good.
Dr. Marc Darrow: Working out’s good. Walking is fine. You know, anything to get your blood pumping
Dr. Marc Darrow: And that raises your adrenaline. When your adrenaline goes up, your insulin goes down. And the key to health is keeping a low insulin. And the way most people do it is through low carb diet and some exercise. It doesn’t have to be fancy exercise. We know that building muscle is good, but if you can’t do that, at least get a walk.
Dr. Marc Darrow: There’s also people that have lower extremity pain.
Dr. Marc Darrow: They can do light weights with their arms. They can get an ergometer, which is a wheel that they can spin with their hands and arms and just to just to breathe hard. Whatever it is that gets you breathing is going to raise your adrenaline a little bit, which lowers the insulin, which is the key to health.
Adriana: I like it. It all makes sense, Marc. Thank you so much.
Richard: Persistent pain after an ankle sprain
Dr. Marc Darrow: God bless you, Adriana. Appreciate talking to you. Thank you for your call. We’re going to go to Richard from LA. Hello, Richard. You have an ankle injury. When did that happen?
Richard: Oh, it it’s a pretty embarrassing story. I’ll tell it real quick. It happened several months ago. I was in the John sitting there doing my business and I had my phone with me and then while I’m there, I got on the internet and stayed there for quite a long time. And when I wait and when I went to stand up, my right leg had fallen asleep.
Dr. Marc Darrow: Yeah, that’s common.
Richard: And I didn’t realize it or I realized it too late and I stepped down on that right leg and my ankle twisted. The worst twist I’ve ever had and I heard a it was a pop.
Dr. Marc Darrow: Oh my goodness.
Richard: It was It was a bad twist. I mean, I really like put all my weight down on that leg and they
Dr. Marc Darrow: Yeah.
Richard: Ankle gave way.
Dr. Marc Darrow: So the the sciatic nerve comes from the lower lumbar area. It’s a plexus or a bunch of nerves together that goes through your butt and down your leg
Dr. Marc Darrow: And sitting on a toilet for a long time puts pressure on that nerve. It it puts pressure on it. And you know it’s like it’s it’s like when your u arm goes numb when you’re sleeping weird or something like that.
Dr. Marc Darrow: Yeah. And it’s it’s nothing wrong with you.
Richard: Oh, I know.
Dr. Marc Darrow: Yeah. And it probably
Dr. Marc Darrow: The numbness probably went away after a minute or so, but you were left with this ankle. Did it fracture or did you sprain it or what happened?
Richard: It’s a sprain. A bad sprain. I was lucky. that I crawled to my kitchen, got some ice, put it on it as quickly as possible.
Dr. Marc Darrow: Okay.
Richard: Which helped tremendously. I’m able to walk.
Richard: I can walk. I even do my I I I do a power walk 30 minutes. I’m able to do it,
Richard: But it’s hurting.
Dr. Marc Darrow: Okay.
Richard: It’s hurting. And And I think I sense that the hurt is going to not only continue, but get worse. So,
Dr. Marc Darrow: Well, let’s hope not. I mean, it’s just happened a few months ago and sometimes
Richard: I hope that
Dr. Marc Darrow: Yeah. Did you get an X-ray or anything or an MRI to see if there is any fracture or ripped tendons?
Richard: Nothing. Nothing that they could see in an X-ray.
Dr. Marc Darrow: Yeah, X-rays don’t show X-rays show bones. They don’t show the tendons.
Richard: That’s all I had done.
Richard: Yeah. But I I was wondering if this particular
Richard: Therapy can help that kind of injury.
Dr. Marc Darrow: Yes, I do ankles almost every single day. And my daughter who played D1 soccer ripped all of her tendons in her foot. and I did I did PRP and stems on her and she healed up. She’s fine. But yeah, we do ankles all the time and they heal pretty quickly after treatment. So I think you’re in good shape with that.
Richard: Do I need to get some other type of look at the injury itself? I mean, should I have an MRI? Should I have a CT scan? Is that necessary?
Dr. Marc Darrow: I don’t think it’s necessary. You know, the exa the physical examination is the most important. I and I have to look at it with my eyes and see what’s going on. Also, after an examination, I could tell you whether I thought you should get any kind of imaging, but they’re usually not necessary. And to be honest, the fact that you’re already walking quite a bit means it’s not too bad of an injury.
Is there any swelling or black and blue that you can see?
Richard: Not now. There was immediately after the injury. Yes. But that’s
Dr. Marc Darrow: Well, just to let you know, I commiserate. I’ve I’ve had probably more sprained ankles than anybody I’ve ever heard of. And I’ve had some really nasty ones and I’ve healed them all up. So, you know, you can do this. You can do this. And I think stem cells mixed with platelets are a very quick way that you can get this done, Richard.
Richard: Okay. and the time frame is still okay to
Dr. Marc Darrow: Oh, yeah. Any anytime anytime there’s still pain, it’s a good idea in my book. I mean, if it’s me and I have pain, I’m going to inject it. Richard, God bless you. We’re going to go to the break and we’re going to get to Barry right after the break. Barry, you hang on. Don’t go anywhere. I’m going to talk to you and see what’s up.
Anybody that wants to call the office for a free phone consult with my staff, that’s 800-300-9300 800-300-9300. Go to the website stemcellinstitute.com. You can email me there and I answer every day.
Break
Announcer: You’re listening to living pain-free with Dr. Marc Darrow at the stem cell institute in West Los Angeles. To schedule an appointment, call 800-300-9300. That’s 800-300-9300. Dr. Darrow will be back in just a moment.
Part 2
Opening
Dr. Marc Darrow: Dr. Marc Darrow back here. Thank you all for listening. And we’re going to get to Barry in just one second. If you’d like to talk to my office and get a free phone consult with my staff and a free copy of my book, which is Stem Cell and Platelet Therapy, Regenerate, Don’t Operate with the foreword by Suzanne Somers. We’re happy to send that out to you.
And it’s got about 280 studies on how stem cells and platelets can heal you without surgery. I think that’s key. Surgery can be great or it can be horrible. It just depends what happens. my shoulder surgery came out not very well at all. And then I was able to heal myself using regenerative medicine. One treatment I did myself overnight completely healed. Doesn’t always work like that.
Sometimes it takes several treatments and sometimes it doesn’t work at all. It’s not the panacea for healing, but it sure is great rather than getting a surgery. So, it’s worth trying, I think. And if you want to call me live right now in the studio, it’s 866-870-5752 866-870-5752. And if you want to send me an email, go to my website stemcellinstitute.com. My website can direct you directly to me.
So Barry, how are you today? This is Dr. Marc Darrow.
Barry: Sciatica and treatment outside the United States
Barry: Morning, Dr. Darrow, and thank you for thank you for doing the show.
Barry: We’re lucky to have we’re lucky to have an expert at your reputation here here in town.
Dr. Marc Darrow: Oh, you’re very you’re very kind. Thank you.
Barry: I had a particular question and a general question. The particular one is applicability of stem cell and regenerative therapy to sciatica in patients in their 50s and older. And the general question is just the development of it over the last maybe 10 to 20 years in the sense that I’m aware that some patients would go out of the country for stem cell therapy and I I’m wondering about that and what developments there have been in general and then particularly for sciatica.
Dr. Marc Darrow: Okay, let’s talk sciatica. Okay. Most diagn most diagnoses that come to my office are incorrect. So I get people come in all the time. They say they’ve been told they have sciatica and it is not sciatica. Sciatica is an impingement of a nerve and typically the pain will run down through the butt down the the back of the leg or side of the leg and then down down the femur.
I mean then down the leg past the knee and depending what nerve roots are irritated it could be top of the foot or the bottom of the foot and there can often be weakness with it. But very often after I do my exam I tell the person it’s not sciatica and they say well is it piriformis syndrome is it this blah blah blah and typically it’s none of those most commonly and this isn’t everybody obviously and there are true sciaticas Barry most commonly it’s an enthesopathy the enthesis is where the muscle tendon ligament attaches to bone so I press pretty hard on the area around the pelvis where they say their pain is coming through.
And 99% of the time it is not a sciatica, it’s a muscle attachment, the gluteus medius. there’s several muscles in the butt. And often times it can also be the attachment of that big hamstring muscle in the back of your leg to the tuberosity where there’s a bursa there. Okay, the gluteal bursa sits right there. So these things are complex. We can’t figure it out based on images.
That’s wrong. That’s absolutely not a good way to diagnose. And if someone has a true sciatica, they’ll get hopefully an a EMG and a nerve conduction study to find out if it’s valid or not. So back in my day when I started medicine, everybody got an EMG and nerve conduction study before they had a neck or back surgery. I don’t see that happening anymore and I don’t know why. so it’s it’s mandatory.
Stay away from the surgeries. Get someone like myself, if not me, to do a very good examination to find out where the pain is being generated from, not where some doctor thinks it’s coming from or where they say in images is showing us from. We need to use our hands and orthopedic medicine to find the pain generator. Does that make sense, Barry?
Barry: Makes a lot of sense.
Dr. Marc Darrow: Yeah. So, like I said, 99% of the patients who come in have the wrong diagnosis, which leads them to a surgery they didn’t need. And we’d get tons of people have had failed surgeries that come in, and when I examine them, I go, “You had a surgery on a spot that wasn’t your problem.” And a lot of tears are are are shed based on that.
The other question you had about whether it’s worth it to go out of the US to get these treatments done. The answer is no. There are tons of doctors in every city that do stem cells and PRP. you can do a search, you know, and chat GPT. Ask for the best stem cell doctor in your area, whatever that is, and you’ll get answers there. the leaving the country is a celebrity thing.
It’s a bunch of BS as far as I’m concerned. I’m not going to have any treatments done on me out of the US. What happens if you have someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing? And you got a problem.
Barry: Scary.
Jill: Harvesting, storing, and using a patient’s own cells
Dr. Marc Darrow: It’s scary. Exactly. So Barry, that’s the answer. I hope you’re doing good. If you want to get into the office or get a free phone consult with my staff, write this number down. It’s 800-300-9300. 800-300-9300. God bless you, Barry. I appreciate your call. It was amazing. And we are going to go to Jill from LA. Jill, can you hear me? Dr. Marc Darrow.
Jill: Good morning.
Dr. Marc Darrow: Good morning. How are you today, Jill?
Jill: Fantastic. How are you?
Dr. Marc Darrow: Living it up. As I always tell people, you have a question about stem cells and PRP. Hit me with it. See if See if you can get me to answer correctly.
Jill: Okay. So, I have done PRP on my knees and I’m thinking of doing stem cells.
Dr. Marc Darrow: Yeah.
Jill: And I’m wondering what is the process of extracting them, growing them? What’s the timeline? And do I will I only have enough for one area or can I save them and grow more and and use them down the road on other areas?
Dr. Marc Darrow: Great questions.
Jill: If I use my own.
Dr. Marc Darrow: Great questions. there’s a couple of good ways to get stem cells from your own body. And one of them is drilling into the back of the pelvis at what’s called the PSIS, the posterior superior iliac spine. I’ve done about 7,000 of those over the years, and it takes me 15 seconds. I have a little mini drill with a small needle that gets into the pelvis very quickly after it’s numbed up.
And then we aspirate your bone marrow. And depending what part of the body it is, if it’s a knee, we spin it so we get all of the blood out of it. And if it’s other areas, we don’t even have to spin it. We like all that extra nutrient value in in the bone marrow. another way to do it is by doing a mini liposuction.
I did a whole bunch of those when I got started, and that’s taking stem cells from your fat. A lot of doctors say only fat is good. A lot of doctors say only bone marrow is good. And a lot of the doctors say only getting it from Wharton’s jelly is good. That’s the inside tissue from an umbilical cord, a newborn healthy baby.
And that goes through a lab to make sure that the person is healthy. There’s no there’s no flu injections [wording uncertain] in there, no COVID injections [wording uncertain] in there. everyone is screened. So, I’ll put it like this. There’s a lot of ways to skin the cat. from my experience, they’re all good. None is better than the other. It just depends on the practitioner what he or she likes to do. let me think if you have any other questions.
The process once we get the stem cells, we inject it. Very simple. the injections, you know, literally take a minute or so. So, it’s not a big deal. I use ultrasound to guide the needle in most cases, not all of them. I don’t need it in broadband areas, but if it’s very specific discrete areas like a knee joint or a hip joint or shoulder joint, I definitely need that ultrasound because the area to get to is is a millimeter or so. do you have any other questions about that?
Jill: No. So, I use all of the stem cells that day like I extract them and and use them in the same
Dr. Marc Darrow: Yes. I don’t like the idea. There are people that take stem cells and bank them. I’m not a big fan of that. I’m not saying not to do it. If you think it works, do it. You know, this medicine is an art. It’s not a science like we think it is. And it depends who that doctor is and what they do. Many years ago, as an example, I was part of an alternative medicine group of doctors.
There were about 30 of us on the west side that would meet once a month and we were talking about hormone supplementation. And the female doctors in the group said that they never had to give testosterone to a woman because women have testosterone. And in my practice after the age of around 30 women don’t have much testosterone. In their practice they did.
Why was that? They had practices of very wealthy women who were divorced. They were on the prowl. Their system created testosterone. My my patients didn’t have that. So it depends on the patient population. It depends on the doctor. It depends on a lot of different things that are very difficult to tell you in advance on what that’s going to be. But the other question I think I heard you say is could you do many body parts at one time?
I’ve done entire bodies at one time where I’ve injected people who have flown in for you know out of the country to get these stem cells and I’ve injected almost every single joint in the body. a procedure that lasted a couple of hours and they’ve done very well with that too. So yeah, you can
Jill: From one extraction from the same extraction.
Salem: Bone marrow versus Wharton’s jelly for knee problems
Dr. Marc Darrow: Yes, if you do that if it’s if you’re using, you know, the person’s blood to get the PRP and Wharton’s jelly, then that’s a different story. You have as much as you want. Otherwise, you have to be a little bit careful on how you do that. So Jill, God bless you. Thank you so much for your call. I appreciate that. is very educational and we’re going to go to Salem from Anaheim.
Salem, how are you today?
Salem [name as captioned]: Hello Dr. Darrow.
Salem [name as captioned]: So I just wanted to know about you know there’s like stem cell and there’s like Wharton’s jelly as well, right?
Dr. Marc Darrow: Sure.
Salem [name as captioned]: The stem cell from the body and there’s Wharton’s jelly. So what’s the difference between the two and like which one should we choose you know for like knee issues like meniscus related tears?
Dr. Marc Darrow: That’s a big question and I go over that with the patient to see what they want to do. some people want to be drilled to get their own stem cells. Most people do not. Back in the day, before we had things like Wharton’s jelly, there was nothing else except to drill or do a liposuction to get it from fat, but that’s not the case anymore.
And it’s very very rare that people want to be drilled now because it can be psychologically irritating. most people it’s not painful because we numb the area up. But there is a psychological element of hearing a drill and feeling the vibration from it that most people do not like. I’ve never had one patient and I I’ve I don’t know if you heard me say this back in the day I did 7,000 bone marrow aspirations and back in the day when people had no alternative they just put up with it.
Today, there are alternatives and they work just as well. So, there’s no need to have a liposuction to get fat stem cells or to drill into the bone. If that answers your question, I hope it does. They all work. They all work very well. And the nice thing about doing bone marrow is you have the PRP, the platelet rich plasma right in the bone marrow.
You have the blood right there. So you get both stem cells and blood at the same time. so there’s no blood draw in the arm that’s needed. But everybody has their own choices. Every patient has their own choices. I honor that. But some patients don’t tolerate the drill and the noise and so they back out of the procedure in the middle of it and say, “Nah, go ahead and just take my blood.
Let’s do it that way and use Wharton’s jelly.” So I hope that answers your question. They all work. They all work well.
Salem [name as captioned]: But which one do you think is more effective from either each of the two?
Dr. Marc Darrow: I know you would like to have that answer and I’d like to give it to you, but nobody knows. In my experience, it’s the same. There isn’t one that’s better. But if you if you’re a doctor who only does bone marrow, then you’re going to say only bone marrow works. If you’re a doctor who only does fat, you’re going to say only fat works. my experience, they’re all the same.
They’re all good. It’s just two of them are invasive and one isn’t. So, you decide. It’s up to the patient.
Salem [name as captioned]: And will the drilling be painful or maybe not?
Dr. Marc Darrow: Well, if it’s invasive, it can be painful. If it’s Wharton’s jelly, it’s not painful at all other than a blood draw to add PRP to it.
Salem [name as captioned]: Got it. Makes sense.
Salem [name as captioned]: All right.
Dr. Marc Darrow: All right. God bless you, Salam. I appreciate your call.
Treatment frequency, activity, and recovery
Dr. Marc Darrow: All right. This is Dr. Marc Darrow, Living Pain Free. I’m going to give out the phone number to my office so you can get a free phone consult with my staff and a free copy of my book, Stem Cell and Platelet Therapy Regenerate Don’t Operate. Let’s see how many pages it is. That’s about 180 pages. with all of the studies and information on how to save yourself from a needless surgery.
And I’m not putting down surgeons. I love surgeons. They do the hardest work in medicine. But most cases that I see, the person never needed surgery. And a lot of the surgeries don’t work or make the person better. I’m sorry, make the person worse. A lot of them do make the patient better. No question about that. but it’s a risk and it’s a risk that I took when I was in medical school on my shoulder and it failed horribly and then I used my own u you know treatment.
I had done my wrist first which healed and then I did my shoulder which healed overnight. The wrist took a few treatments and then I became a believer in regenerative medicine and since then I’ve done both my knees with stem cells and platelets, both my elbows. I’ve done both shoulders and neck, back, you name it. I’ve had it done. I’m doing real well in sports.
I had a period when I was in my 40s where I was I’m not going to say disabled, but I had trouble doing any sports because I had pain all over the body. And that’s pretty much gone now thanks to this kind of practice that I do. And I’m very fortunate because most of these things that I have I can inject myself.
So as an example, back in the COVID days, we couldn’t drive a cart. And I play golf at Mountain Gate, which is right behind the Getty Museum in LA. And it’s it mountain gate is the right name for the course because it’s up and down hills and we couldn’t ride in a cart because of co. So I had a push cart and it’s very difficult to push a cart through the kind of thick grass that mountain gate has.
So I blew my knee out and I drove down to my office and I put the ultrasound on my knee and I saw a huge amount of fluid in it. So, I put a needle in it and took the fluid out. There were 45 cc’s of fluid and I put stem cells and platelets into my knee and I did that four days in a row.
And people might say, “Well, that’s very excessive.” And it might be excessive, but guess what? It worked. And I was back on the golf course again. So, you know, one of the things about these treatments that we typically will treat hopefully just once, but if we need to treat more, it’ll be on the second visit, which is a couple weeks after the first visit or the first treatment.
And we u have people come in two weeks after their treatment for a re-evaluation. So, typically, if we’re going to retreat, it’s going to be after a couple weeks or so. A lot of doctors wait months. They think that the standard for them is to wait until all the tissue grows and matures. And that’s fine if they want to do that, but that patient is going to be waiting months to heal.
I would rather my patients heal in a few weeks. So, I’m a proponent of more frequent injections if the first one didn’t get you what you wanted. Sometimes people will have one injection and feel 50% better or 20% better and then they’ll do another one and it’s typically you know each treatment the person gets better and better. Not always. This type of treatment is not going to work on everybody for many reasons.
One is that person may be too active and doesn’t let that the cells that are put in actually do the work they’re supposed to do and they’ll beat up the area before it’s healed. And that’s very common. people are very reticent to stop activity and I always tell them healing is very inconvenient. No one wants to stop what they’re doing to heal.
Nobody I know wants to and I don’t want to either. U so you have to be very cautious about letting that area heal. The other thing is that sometimes people don’t get enough treatments. They could be one treatment away from healing. And that’s happened to me. I had an injury once that took a few months of treatments to heal, but I didn’t give up.
You know, it’s it’s what I do for a living. And I knew eventually it was going to work. So if you’re a patient, you don’t know that. You haven’t been around it. I’ve done thousands and thousands and thousands of treatments. And again, not everybody heals for certain reasons. It could be taking anti-inflammatory medicine and blocking the inflammation that’s needed.
Dr. Marc Darrow: [Written question: Leg pain and numbness after three femur operations] It’s three femur operations. says, “I’m an 84 year old and I’ve had three femur operations. Lately, having numbness and pain in the leg with the femur operations. I need to walk and exercise but find it hard. What do you suggest?” I am a diabetic too. That’s a type 2 diabetic. So very often type 2 diabetics are overweight and that’s a disease where the patient typically is creating the diabetes by eating high carb food and they’re creating excess weight on their body.
This person has leg pain, femur pain and numbness. Could that be coming from them overeating? Absolutely. There are actually studies that show that excess weight can cause osteoarthritis in the knees. So, I have to be very careful. People don’t like me to tell them that they need to lose weight. So, I’m kind of careful about it, but if they raise the topic, I’m going to help them and show them how to do it.
And it’s mainly, you know, eating protein and vegetables and staying away from the carbs that raise the insulin. When insulin is up, you stash fat. And you know, our country is overweight. We have too much money. We can afford to buy the carbs. Other countries, people are a lot thinner because they don’t have the money. They stick to the protein and the vegetables.
Ah, the show is over. Darn it. God bless you all for listening. If you want a free phone consult with my staff and a free copy of my book, Stem Cell and Platelet Therapy, Regenerate, Don’t Operate, call my office right now. The people are there waiting. That’s 800-300-9300. If you want to watch me doing these procedures, go to my website, stemcellinstitute.com, and you can email me from that website.
God bless you all. I appreciate you listening and I wish you fast healing. Thank you.
Closing
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