Living Pain-Free Radio Transcript: October 3, 2026

With Marc Darrow, MD

In this episode of Living Pain-Free, Marc Darrow, MD, discusses knee pain after meniscus surgery, shoulder platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injections, returning to golf, low back and leg pain, and persistent knee instability after a posterior cruciate ligament (PCL) injury. Callers also share their experiences and ask about treatments outside his musculoskeletal practice.

This transcript has been edited for clarity and readability from the recording’s automated captions. The discussion reflects the speakers’ statements during the broadcast. Unclear names or wording are identified in brackets.

Part 1: Knee pain, shoulder PRP, and treatment questions

Opening and regenerative medicine discussion

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: Well, hello there. It’s such a pleasure to be here speaking to you to educate you as to how you can heal your orthopedic injuries and pain and arthritis without needless surgery. And that’s really what I am all about.

I’ve been doing this work since my residency at UCLA back in the 1990s and it’s been a wonderful experience for me and not just for my patients but for my own body. I’ve had many injuries from sports starting from my early gymnastics days in high school and college and I love sports.

I’m one of those guys that needs to be outdoors every day doing something. And my mom used to say, sunshine is medicine. And that’s what I think too. I think getting outdoors every day, even with just taking a walk, is very beneficial. Getting some endorphins, as we get older, it’s difficult to do the sports we used to do.

And the one thing I hear from every single patient is,”I used to.” Well, we all used to, but we have to be grateful for what we can do today because 10 years from now, we’ll look back to today and go, I wish I was like that. So, be very grateful. Gratitude to me is the key to life in every situation.

And we’re going to be giving out a copy of my book for free, Stem Cell and Platelet Therapy: Regenerate Don’t Operate with the foreword by Suzanne Somers, who writes, “Stem cell therapy might just be what you’re looking for. This book could change your life for the better.” So if you want a free copy of the book, call my office at 800-300-9300.

Not only will you get a free copy of the book, but you will also get a free phone consult with my staff, and they are eager to speak to you.

In the book, you’ll see photos of a lot of different athletes, including my five children. Here is a photograph of the book I’m showing of one of my kids on a 60-foot wave at Mavericks. Another one dancing. She was a dancer and one was a runner, one was a soccer player and one just a general lazy athlete who likes to bike around.

I always push him to do more. but at any rate, if you want to learn more about how to heal your body with stem cells and PRP, the way to do it is to go to www.stemcellinstitute.com. That’s my website. www.stemcellinstitute.com. I’m Marc Darrow. M A R C D A R R O W.

And I’m the guy that got this stuff going long time ago.

I’m not the first guy, but being having been an attorney and someone who has always been out in front of the public, I think I was the guy that brought this to the public the most of anyone else.

Now doing stem cells and PRP. and exosomes is the new thing on the block is pretty much everywhere and you can find tons of people that do it. I’m not so sure they know what they’re doing. Many people don’t even use an ultrasound to look into the body to guide the needle.

So, you have to be careful about that, too. If you’d like to call in, you can call the show right now at 866-870-5752. And you can talk to me live. I would love for you to call me and ask questions about what stem cells can do to heal you, how you can avoid getting an orthopedic surgery that you may not need.

And I always am careful. I always say I love the orthopedic surgeons. I just don’t like most of the surgeries they are doing.

We get new patients in the office almost every single day with meniscal tears in their knee. There are now studies showing not to do those surgeries because the knees don’t come out that well.

There’s a lot of problems we see from surgeries including the one I had on my shoulder while I was in medical school and it was four years of misery after that surgery. I had some pain before from weightlifting, but the surgery really bashed my shoulder.

And finally, when I learned about doing what we call regenerative medicine, it used to be called prolotherapy back in the day. Now it is stem cells and PRP and exosomes. but back then I had a lot of pain after the surgery. My arm was swollen. I had a fever.

And I was one of the lucky ones because I know patients that have had a lot things more terrible than that. So I had a lecture at UCLA during my residency about prolotherapy and it now has morphed into stem cells and PRP.

And I injected myself with prolotherapy and the next day I woke up my shoulder was one completely perfect shoulder. It had no pain, and my range of motion was full again. So, I’m going to go to some questions here.

Written question: Knee pain and a Baker’s cyst

Dr. Marc Darrow: Okay, we got a caller on line one. Let’s take that caller. Lorraine, how are you today, ma’am? Can you hear me? No, we’re not getting through here. So, I am going to do a question until a caller comes in here. this one says, “Knee Baker cyst rupture.” So, let’s see what the person says about that.

Currently, I have knee pain with the ball on the outer side of the knee. I assume they mean it’s swollen. Knee pain is getting worse going up and downstairs.

Pain behind the knee that goes up to the mid thigh and or the side of the leg down to the mid leg. I’ve been icing it, which seems to help. So I am assuming this is a Baker cyst. Baker cyst or synovial cyst is typically from fluid in the front of the knee that has no place for it to go.

So it pushes its way into the back of the knee.

And what the first thing I’ll do when people talk like this is I’m going to put the ultrasound on the front of the knee. see if there’s fluid there and do an exam with the ultrasound all over the knee. Look for medial and lateral meniscal tears. Look for cartilage. See how much there is. Look for arthritis.

And then put the ultrasound on the back of the knee and look for fluid there. and typically I just did this yesterday actually.

I aspirated the Baker cyst from it was a dermatologist who came in who does Mohs procedures very intense surgeries to remove cancer and he had he was an athlete did every kind of sport. So I removed the Baker cyst first.

He actually had about I think it was about 15 cc’s of fluid in the back of the knee that I aspirated very simply.

By the way, doing these aspirations or putting needles in places where you don’t see can be a real problem because especially like the back of the knee, there is a major nerve and artery there. And if you’re not looking with an ultrasound, you can poke the wrong thing.

And it’s also very painful poking around the knee when you’re not looking with an ultrasound. We actually numb it up first. It doesn’t hurt at all. So,

Lorraine: Macular degeneration

Dr. Marc Darrow: Lorraine, are you there? Can you hear me?

Lorraine: Yes.

Dr. Marc Darrow: Hi, Lorraine. This is Dr. Marc Darrow. Do you have any questions for me?

Lorraine: Yes. Good morning, Dr. Darrow. I love your program. I listen to you every Saturday.

Dr. Marc Darrow: Oh, that’s sweet. I appreciate that.

Lorraine: I wanted to check with you. I have macular degeneration of the eye. Okay. And I wondered has there ever been anything with stem cells that it could stop it or change it or anything like that?

Dr. Marc Darrow: Well, first to be very transparent, I am not the expert on stem cells for anything other than musculoskeletal complaints. So if you have something like back pain, neck pain, any joints from the neck all the way down the back down to the feet, the ankles, the knees, the shoulders, the hips, all of that. Anything with tendon tears.

I just did a hamstring tear yesterday. I’m good at that, but I’m not anything good about macular degeneration because I’m not an ophthalmologist.

I have read that there are people that are getting healed by that, but I don’t personally know much about it. I would ask you to do a search on chat GPT to ask that question.

And if you want my feedback on it after you send me the research, which you can do on my website, which is stemcellinstitute.com, you can send me an email on every page there. I’ll look at it with you and I’ll call you up and we can talk about it together and I’ll give you my opinion at that point.

But as of this point being totally transparent, I am not the expert on eyes and I’m the orthopedic guy with stem cells and PRP and I apologize for that I don’t know everything about stem cells. So are there any questions you have since you listen to the show every week about the musculoskeletal issues? Do you have any pain in your body?

Lorraine: I’m so old. I’m older than dirt. I’m 86 years old. I don’t have computers or smartphones, so I can’t go on the internet and this sort of thing. and everybody I know is in heaven.

Dr. Marc Darrow: Okay.

Lorraine: So, but I just thought I do go to the doctors. I’m in a research program for it with a doctor in Torrance, but I don’t you don’t know when they’re giving you these injections whether it’s the real thing or it’s phony.

Dr. Marc Darrow: Okay.

Lorraine: And it’s Well, I don’t think it is because I this has been several months and I can see I do a lot of paperwork.

I’m going to be buried in 25 feet of paper.

Dr. Marc Darrow: Well, listen, God bless you, Lorraine. We’re going to go on to things here that are more pertinent to what the show is about, but I do appreciate your call and I wish you very well. So, you have a great day.

Caller: Knee pain after meniscus surgery

Dr. Marc Darrow: We’re going to our next caller on line two. do you have a question for me? I’m not hearing anything. Can you hear me? Hello.

Caller: Yep. Hello.

Dr. Marc Darrow: Yeah, you’re going to have to speak up. Yell at me.

Caller: hello Dr. Darrow.

Dr. Marc Darrow: Hello.

Caller: hi. so I had a question. I actually had a meniscus tear in both the knees and yeah, I had surgery, but one of the knees is still bothering me. So I want to know how would stem cell work in my situation.

Dr. Marc Darrow: Okay. Well, I can tell you that from personal experience and from doing this for almost 30 years. Meniscal tears number one may not be your problem. Okay. Very often when an image is done, it shows something that is not anatomically correct and then the patient gets a surgery on something they didn’t need.

So be very careful to have someone who is not a surgeon who does regenerative medicine examine your knees to see how big that tear is and whether that tear is actually the pain generator.

So when someone tells me they have a meniscal tear, the first thing I do is I touch the area of the meniscus to see if it’s causing the pain. If it’s the pain generator, then I will inject stem cells and PRP mixed together into that specific area. To do that, I need an ultrasound.

I use a very teeny needle, a 30-gauge needle, so it doesn’t hurt. And that can heal up that area if in fact it is the pain generator. My knees both have meniscal tears. I used to have terrible pain there.

I was an avid runner and golfer and my knees were sore. I injected my menisci and they’re fine. The tear still looks I can see it if I look with an ultrasound, but it doesn’t hurt anymore. So yes, stem cells can grow enough tissue so that the pain can be diminished.

Some people get very confused and they go, “But it’s not fixed.” And I go, “Well, it’s fixed enough, so it’s healed enough so you’re not having any pain.” Some people don’t like that answer. They want to see on an image that looks perfect.

And that’s not necessary. As we age, there are many things in our body that show up on MRIs that are not causing problems. It’s just natural aging. Any other questions?

Caller: and do you think there will be any side effects of stem cells?

Dr. Marc Darrow: No. I do this all day long. I’ve never had a side effect other than people get a little bit stiff after they get the injections. That’s about it.

Caller: All right. okay. Thank you, doctor.

Dr. Marc Darrow: All right. God bless you, man. I appreciate your call. This is Dr. Marc Darrow. Oh, I got a frog in my throat. if you want to call in like these people just have and talk to me live, you can call 866-870-5752. I’d love to hear from you.

Get some interesting questions about stem cells, PRP, regenerative medicine, exosomes, any of these things that interest you.

Tom: Shoulder PRP and returning to golf

Dr. Marc Darrow: Okay, we’re going to Tom. Tom, can you hear me? Hello, Tom.

Tom: Hey. Hello, doctor. How are you?

Dr. Marc Darrow: I’m living it up, man. I hope you are, too. You got any good questions to stump the star?

Tom: Doing a lot better. Well, first off, I got to tell you, I saw you it’ll be two weeks on Monday.

Dr. Marc Darrow: Okay.

Tom: The PRP injection. And I have not played golf since March 30th. And I live to play golf. And once a month with the other treatments I’ve got, I’ve tried to go out and just hit balls easy on the range. Yeah. Was not able to do it.

And yesterday, 12 days after the PRP injection, I went out and hit some balls on the range yesterday and didn’t have any problem. And when I woke up this morning, I wasn’t stiff at all. So, I think I’m I’m hoping I’m well on the way.

Dr. Marc Darrow: Yeah, that sounds pretty amazing. Do you remember where I injected you? Was it the medial meniscus?

Tom: No. When I got a previous PRP, it was just one injection.

Dr. Marc Darrow: Yeah.

Tom: And they took one tube of my blood. Yeah. Your staff took eight tubes.

Dr. Marc Darrow: Yeah.

Tom: And I think you injected me like 20 some odd times in the whole shoulder capsule. Front.

Dr. Marc Darrow: Oh, the shoulder. Okay. Okay.

Tom: Yeah. Right shoulder.

Dr. Marc Darrow: Yeah. Yeah.

You can’t you can’t do you can’t do one poke in a shoulder to get much out of it because the shoulder is such a complex joint. it has such a huge range of motion that when I inject a shoulder the first thing I want to do is go which I did with you is go to the joint capsule and that’s the glenohumeral joint.

I like to do the subdeltoid bursa because a lot of times we’ll do an MRI or an ultrasound of the shoulder. you don’t see one issue and the pain can be generating from that bursa that’s underneath the acromion. So I did that and I like to do the supraspinatus tendon.

That’s the most commonly torn tendon in the shoulder and then the biceps tendon.

Tom: My tear was

Dr. Marc Darrow: okay. Were your tear was in the biceps or supraspinatus?

Tom: No, it was in the supraspinatus.

Dr. Marc Darrow: Yeah, that’s the most common. Yeah. There’s four rotator cuff tendons and that’s the most commonly one torn and

Tom: Uhhuh.

Dr. Marc Darrow: So you had good luck.

Tom: You gave me four simple exercises to do twice a day so that the shoulder capsule wouldn’t freeze or get stiff and

Dr. Marc Darrow: Yeah. Yeah.

Tom: And each one was just two minutes. So in 8 minutes in the morning, 8 minutes at night, I was able to, so everything was good.

And but my question would be if I don’t get 100% better from this and then want to do the stem cell my question is where number one is where do the stem cells come from? that’s a great question from somebody else.

Dr. Marc Darrow: Sure. It could be done either way. stem cells can come from your bone marrow. I’ve done 7,000 of those in my career. that was sort of the go-to back in the day. the way regenerative medicine has worked was prolotherapy has been around forever and Hippocrates the great doctor back in Greece 500 BC used a form of it that was very crude.

He would take a hot iron and scald the shoulder capsule underneath the arm. he would tighten up the shoulder when there was a problem with javelin throwers when they had dislocations and that’s a very crude way of doing prolotherapy.

Then in the 1900s there were doctors that started doing it by injecting things like concentrated dextrose and then that would cause an inflammatory process and then we moved into using PRP using platelets from the blood and then the stem cells came shortly thereafter which we took from bone marrow or fat.

I used to do fat. we would do a mini aspiration of the fat, a mini liposuction. I didn’t find personally that worked for me as well as the bone marrow did. so I just started doing the bone marrow and then what came out next was Wharton’s jelly, which is stem cells from the inside of an umbilical cord.

A lot of people buy the umbilical cord when their new babies are born and they save those. they freeze those in case the kid grows up having leukemia or something like that.

So they have the stem cells available without having to do a match. so that those are both possible. And then today there’s also exosomes that goes beyond even stem cells. They’re vesicles that are produced by stem cells that sort of orchestrate healing. So all of those things could be mixed together. There’s no one way fits all.

There are doctors that only do bone marrow stem cells. There’s doctors that only do fat stem cells and there’s doctors that only do Wharton’s jelly. so yeah, there’s a lot of ways to skin the cat and heal people.

And we’d talk to you if you decide if you need it. Sounds like your shoulder is doing great if you were out playing golf already. and I want you to come out and give me a lesson. I love lessons from everybody.

Tom: And my last question is: how many stem cells do you use or what determines how many you need?

Dr. Marc Darrow: this goes back to this goes back to a question that I had when I first started doing this.

I had a mentor who had done it before me and the first patient with a knee problem came in and I was afraid to inject the knee because it has a capsule around it that can become inflamed and create a lot of hyaluronic acid and fluid.

And so I called my mentor up when the patient was in the office and I said, “What should I use to inject the knee so I don’t inflame it?” and he said, “Marc, inject anything you want.

It doesn’t matter what it is, and it’ll heal.” So, when you say how many stem cells, it’s irrelevant. a lot of people a lot of people will advertise putting in x number of stem cells, 500 million or a billion or whatever, and it’s really irrelevant, and it doesn’t do a better healing.

There’s a study I read that showed that the more stem cells you put in, the slower the velocity of growth of the stem cells. So, the science is not all there yet. And I find that the number of cells is not relevant.

And when people say they’re giving you x number of cells, they’re lying to you because to be honest with you, nobody really knows what a stem cell is. Doctors argue about it. So there are certain cells that have certain markers on them and we do our best to replicate what that is.

And so there’s a lot we don’t know. I do know that using stem cells mixed with PRP works better than just PRP alone. And with exosomes, it’s the bomb today. So there’s a lot we don’t know. And I wish I knew more and we’re learning more. And I do know that what we do is helping people like it did for you.

That’s pretty amazing. You had a supraspinatus tear. You had pain. You couldn’t play golf for months. And after 2 weeks after we injected you’re better. That’s pretty damn good. So,

Tom: well, I’m improving. I Yeah, I’m I’m I’m very happy because I haven’t been I haven’t played yet. I just hit balls at the range, but okay. I was able to do it relatively painfree, which I have not been able to do for six months.

Dr. Marc Darrow: Yeah. So, and the advice the advice I’m glad you called into the show. The advice I’d give to you is don’t get any balls yet. Come in to see me. Let’s take a look and see what’s going on. And then I’ll release you to do what you need to do after we put our brains together and see how that works.

Closing

Dr. Marc Darrow: Anyway, thanks so much for the call, Tom. This is Dr. Marc Darrow and Living Pain-Free how to heal with stem cells and PRP instead of getting a surgery. And if you want to call the office for a free phone consult that’s 800-300-9300 and you get a free copy of my book if

Announcer: you call. 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: Back pain, PCL injuries, and caller experiences

Opening: Activity after injections and identifying the pain source

Dr. Marc Darrow: This is Dr. Marc Darrow. We’re going to the second half of Living Pain-Free. The show is all about how do you heal your musculoskeletal pain?

Anything from the top of the head, the neck, the back, the shoulders, the elbows, the fingers, every joint, arthritis, plantar fasciitis, all kinds of stuff. anything in the body that hurts, I would hope that you see someone beside a surgeon to get a second opinion from someone who does something different, someone who uses cells from your own body that can help you heal yourself rather than getting a surgery that you may not need because that’s no bargain.

It’s no pleasure getting a surgery.

And I know cuz I had a orthopedic surgery on my shoulder that went bad and thank goodness a few years later I learned about doing regenerative medicine and I injected myself was all better 100% the next day. It doesn’t always work like that. Sometimes it takes several treatments. and sometimes people don’t listen to me.

We just had Tom call in who was injected to his shoulder by me a couple weeks ago and he went to the golf course and hit some balls and said his shoulder isn’t perfect and my instructions to him when he left the office was don’t do that until you talk to me and he is because we all want to get out and do sports every day but you can set yourself back after getting stem cells and PRP and like you can actually make it worse than it was before if you’re too active because you’re going feel better sometimes and then you get too active and it’s not healed yet.

So you have to be careful about that. so the phone number to talk to me live is 866-870-5752 and to call my office 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. The phone number to the office is 800-300-9300. 800-300-9300.

Rather than getting a surgery you didn’t need. I’m not putting down surgeons. They do the toughest work in medicine. I am putting down the surgeries that don’t need to be done.

We get way too many people that come in who have had a surgery that made them worse or didn’t help and then they come to me afterwards and sometimes it’s too late because tissue has been removed.

The integrity of whatever area it is the joint is gone and then the person’s on a slippery slope to getting more surgery which for a knee could be a knee replacement or shoulder replacement, hip replacement. when that never would have been the case had they not had the initial surgery. So, be careful. And again, I love surgeons. They do tough work.

Just be careful you don’t get a surgery you don’t need.

And one of the ways to do that, make sure your doctor touches the area, does a thorough exam, and finds where the pain is coming from. Way too many surgeries are done on an area that shows up in an image like an MRI, but that’s not where the pain is.

And then an operation is done on an image, not on the person, if you understand what .

Sally: Muscle pain after chemotherapy

Dr. Marc Darrow: We have a bunch of callers. Is Sally available? Sally, can you hear me?

Sally: Hello? Yes, I can.

Dr. Marc Darrow: Sally, go for it. What’s your question?

Sally: Okay. Dr. Darrow, I presume you’re Dr. Darrow,

Dr. Marc Darrow: sometimes

Sally: I just finished chemotherapy.

Dr. Marc Darrow: Okay.

Sally: And my muscles hurt. All of my muscles hurt. My arms hurt, my leg muscles hurt.

Dr. Marc Darrow: Okay.

Sally: And I’m, much slower. So, I’m just wondering if stem cell can do anything for me.

Dr. Marc Darrow: It’s possible. And again we had a caller who called in Lorraine about macular degeneration which is in the eye and stem cells. That’s not my field. I know a little bit about stem cells and other things but not that much. I don’t know about chemotherapy and stem cells. So I wouldn’t be the right guy to ask about that.

I know there are doctors who give IV stem cells and that might be the answer for you. I don’t I actually know a guy in San Francisco who does that. where do you live?

Sally: I live in [town unclear], Illinois.

Dr. Marc Darrow: Okay. Illinois. I don’t know anyone. Well, actually, I do know someone who might do that. let me think. his name is [Name unclear]. I can’t remember his name. I would I would look up a Dr. [name unclear] who does alternative medicine and a lot of IVs and he might be the guy that could help you with that.

Yeah, it’s not it’s not in my wheelhouse though. I do not do IV stem cells.

And to be honest with you, I know a lot of people that leave the country to do it and they think it’s going to be a magical thing and they come back and they’ll see me afterwards and say it didn’t work for more than a few days. But for you with the chemotherapy side effect, it might be perfect.

The people I’m talking about are people that have, longstanding pain, arthritis, things of that nature, and they say it didn’t work for them, but it might work for some people that have that. I just don’t know any.

But for chemotherapy, I think it’s worth a try. The other thing for chemotherapy is high-dose IV with antioxidants because the chemo can strip the body of that. And again, I do remember the guy’s name. His name is [doctor’s name and spelling unclear].

Sally: Okay. All right.

Dr. Marc Darrow: Call that doctor. Yeah.

Sally: Thank you, Dr.

Dr. Marc Darrow: All right, Sally. Thank you so much. I really appreciate your call. So,

Bruce: Low back pain, leg pain, and imaging findings

Dr. Marc Darrow: okay, Bruce, let’s hear from you. What do you got to tell me? Hello, Bruce. Can you hear me?

Bruce: Yes. Hi, Dr. Darrow.

Dr. Marc Darrow: How are you today?

Bruce: Thank you for taking my call.

Dr. Marc Darrow: I appreciate you calling in. What’s happening with you?

Bruce: Well, I’m just wondering I’ve got a chronic lower back problem.

Dr. Marc Darrow: Okay.

Bruce: I’ve got two herniated discs and spondylolisthesis, which is a break in the bone. Yeah. and spinal stenosis and it’s it’s basically kind of a mess and I end up with chronic problems that are hard to deal with and I’m wondering what you think about stem cell or treating it.

Dr. Marc Darrow: Well, first of all, an examination’s always needed to give the ultimate answer. And my first question to you is, do you have pain in your back or pain in your legs or both?

Bruce: both. At this point, it’s more my leg.

Dr. Marc Darrow: Okay. So, do you have low back pain? you start out saying you have chronic low back pain

Bruce: at the moment. No.

Dr. Marc Darrow: Okay.

Bruce: But when this current episode of pain started, it was in my back and then it switched over to my leg.

Dr. Marc Darrow: Okay. So there’s many things that could be going on there, most of which may not be relevant at all in terms of your diagnosis that you threw out. spondylolisthesis, unless it’s a high grade, does not cause any pain at all. It’s very common. And do you remember what the doctor told you in terms of what grade you have? 1 2 3 4.

Bruce: I think it’s grade one.

Dr. Marc Darrow: Okay, grade one.

Bruce: I have degenerative spondylolisthesis.

Dr. Marc Darrow: Yeah. Generally that does not cause any pain or cause leg pain. No back pain, no leg pain. Okay. That’s a very minimal amount of one vertebrae moving away from the other one below it or on top of it. Okay. So, I’m not I’m going to count that out without know without touching you.

I can’t tell you much, but I’m going to count that out just based on the diagnosis that not that is not the reason for any back pain you have or anything in your leg. Spinal stenosis typically does not cause back pain.

It means that there’s a squeezing of nerves in the low back, but again, that may not be the issue at all. We get people all the time that come in with spinal stenosis for low back pain and it’s not their issue at all. Most issues in the low back are from what’s called an enthesopathy.

The enthesis is where the ligaments, tendons, fascia, muscle attaches to bone. That’s the number one most common problem for low back pain. And I could tell you in one second by touching you if that’s your problem.

And very often when there is a limb pain with that is not from a nerve being impinged. It’s from a trigger point and Travell and Simons were doctors that took care of they actually wrote a book on it and Travell took care of JFK and he had trigger points like that.

He had a lot of pain and a lot of injuries and he pretty much had chronic low back pain. he didn’t know about back in the day doing stem cells and PRP and that might have been the answer for him and it might be the answer for you. I wouldn’t know until I do an examination.

I get people all the time who call in or who write an email through my website stemcellinstitute.com asking can I please send you my x-rays, my MRIs, my CT and you can tell me if you can help me.

My response is always that won’t help me decide where your pain is coming from. So, if you can get into the office, the number is 800-300-9300 to the office. If you call now, you’ll get a free phone consult with my staff and a free book that I wrote called Stem Cell and Platelet Therapy. regenerate. Don’t operate.

Regenerate meaning grow the tissue back with stem cells and platelets instead of cutting tissue out that you don’t need to do.

So until you have an examination, Bruce, I don’t have your answers, but I hope I’ve given you enough information. you also said herniated discs.

Bruce: Good information.

Dr. Marc Darrow: Two herniated discs. I have more than two herniated discs. I don’t have back pain or neck pain, but I have herniated discs. That should tell you that herniated discs don’t give you the information either. Most patients that I have that have had failed surgeries, they had a surgery that didn’t work.

I ask, “Did the surgeon touch your body and examine you?” And the answer is almost every single time, “No, they didn’t examine me.

They showed me the image of what needed to be operated on, and then they had the surgery, and it didn’t work.” So, be careful. Don’t go for the surgery until you get a good examination by someone who knows what they’re doing and can use their hands to do the diagnosis.

One of the first things that I do, Bruce, with patients when they walk in the door is take their diagnosis away from them. Most diagnoses that come in my office are absolutely 100% wrong.

I don’t know what that tells you about doctors, but it tells me a lot. Yep. I appreciate your call, Bruce. I hope that helped. Once again, to call the office and get free phone consult with my staff and a free copy of my book, Stem Cell and Platelet Therapy, Regenerate, Don’t Operate. Number to the office is 800-300-9300.

And for those of you listening, there’s still a few minutes left. You can call me right now live. Ask me questions about your musculoskeletal pain at 866-870-5752. And unfortunately my call screening board is not working today.

Alfred: Back and hip pain and referral to another practitioner

Dr. Marc Darrow: We have Alfred. Alfred, hello to you today. Can you hear me? Hello

Alfred: Washington.

Dr. Marc Darrow: Hello.

Alfred: Hello.

Dr. Marc Darrow: Yeah, I can’t hear you, Alfred. You got to scream. Oh, what to do in this case?

Alfred: What case? I am in my car.

Dr. Marc Darrow: Yeah, you can talk. Just yell. Yeah, you can talk. I can hear you.

Alfred: Yeah. I just wanted to give my testimony about meeting Dr. Darrow.

Dr. Marc Darrow: Oh, okay.

Alfred: I have been suffering so long time of my back and my hip. Yes.

And I have been taking so many medications, prednisone, I have been taking different B12 injections and I have been going through ibuprofen and so when I when I went to meet him, he checked me once, twice and three times and he told me instead I went to see him for PRP and for stem cells. Yeah.

And instead of benefiting from me, from my desires to meet him and to well, he could he could really he could really tell me well I can help you. Instead, he directed me to a place where I can be treated better. And I appreciate so much his honesty, his sincerity, his dedication.

And as soon as I went to the chiropractor, he referred me. Yeah, with two sessions all my pain ended. I did not need to be taking the ibuprofen. I did not need to take cortisone and I can stand now.

I walk well and for 6 weeks I have been walking and bending forward to ease the pain of my back. So I’m grateful. I’m really grateful for such doctors who sacrifice their own clinic if you want or their own business to help the patient and give him the best he needs.

Dr. Marc Darrow: Well, that makes me very happy that you’re calling in Alfred. Yeah, that occasionally happens where there’s someone who I think a different type of practitioner can help better. I think you had what we call a radiculopathy. We thought it was a radiculopathy. If you’d been to a surgeon, they would have operated on you for no reason at all.

And I did send you I did send you, I believe, to Randy [surname unclear], who’s an amazing chiropractor. And like you’re saying, two treatments.

Alfred: Yeah.

Dr. Marc Darrow: Yeah. Two treatments later, you’re up and walking and your leg pain is gone. So, that’s a case where I don’t think I could do much for. Theoretically, I could, but I’d put you in the hands of another doctor that I thought would be better for you.

And I’m so grateful that you called in and let people know that there’s a lot of ways to heal. It’s not just doing stem cells and PRP, which I do. if acupuncture works, do that. If massage works, do that. If physical therapy works, do that. Do what works.

I always tell people, do what works and be conservative. And I’m so grateful that you’re feeling better, Alfred. And that’s pretty miraculous because, honestly, you would have had a surgery if you went into the wrong hands. So, thank you so much for your call. All right. do we have any other callers waiting on the board?

Thomas: Persistent pain and laxity after PCL reconstruction

Dr. Marc Darrow: We got Thomas. Thomas, are you ready to talk?

Thomas: Yes, I am.

Dr. Marc Darrow: What do you got going on, Thomas?

Thomas: Well, not much. I about 10 plus years ago, I was in an accident where I had a pretty traumatic knee injury where I snapped my PCL ligament. Okay. And so now I’m just kind of exploring, after just years of occasional physical therapy and this and that, I’ve just explored stem cell therapy.

Dr. Marc Darrow: Okay. Let me ask you this. Does your knee translate? Does it shift from like if you push your tibia, the lower bone, does that come off of the femur bone? Does it slide?

Thomas: It does. Yeah.

Dr. Marc Darrow: Okay. So that is the posterior cruciate ligament that is a problem that could be helped and most doctors do surgeries on them. We don’t we inject the area and try to grow that tissue back. most surgeons say that can’t be done but it is done and we work more there’s we see more ACL ruptures than PCL ruptures.

The ACL rupture is much more common and the studies actually show a lot of these heal themselves on their own but if yours is 10 years ago you need some other kind of treatment it looks like.

Do you have knee pain or is it just laxity?

Thomas: No, it’s both. It’s occasional knee pain, achiness in that knee. I did have it repaired I did Yeah. So they took a piece of my own hamstring and then a piece of a I forget an animal of some sort and

Dr. Marc Darrow: okay

Thomas: gave me a new ligament, but it’s still there’s still a lot of movement there and it still bothers me from time to time for sure.

Dr. Marc Darrow: Well, like I always tell everybody, I have to examine you before I can tell you anything. if you want to get to the office, you can call 800-300-9300 and my staff will send you out a copy of my book stem cell platelet therapy regenerate don’t operate and you can start there.

You can also start by looking at the website stemcellinstitute.com and see if that’s something you think might be effective for you. But most important of anything is a good examination to find out what is going on.

And do you have pain in the knee or is it just the laxity?

Thomas: No, I do have pain. It comes and goes. there’s there’s some days are good and some days are not as good. And I’ve always kind of, through my research and everything, I’ve always kind of referred to that as inflammation, right? So, if it’s inflamed, then I’ll feel the pain.

And if it’s not, then so yeah, but it’d be nice to, resolve the issue.

Dr. Marc Darrow: Well, I’d love to help you. I’d love to see you back to whatever thing you want to do that you can’t. And that’s the big thing in life, being able to do what you want. And I think that, doing stem cells and PRP is an amazing way to stay young. I’m almost I’m not going to say how old.

I was born in I’ll say I’ll tell it this way.

I was born in 1948 and the one thing that’s kept me back in sports is injecting myself and every time I’m very lucky to be in this field of medicine because when I injure myself, which I still do, I’m still very active and when I play golf, I want to hit the ball as hard as I can.

And everyone I play with is pretty amazed at what I can do on the golf course. When I’m in the park running, I like to sprint and whatever I do, I like to do hard.

Having been a gymnast, I’m used to really using my body as terrifically as it can be used. And that’s the way I like to move. a big thing with all this obviously is staying thin. We get a lot of people who come in that are way overweight.

I don’t even like to mention it to them because they get hurt feelings and get angry. But, for everybody listening, stay thin. It’s one of the greatest things to exercise and health.

And people say, “Well, I can’t exercise anymore because my knee pain or whatever it is.” And I go, “Well, then walk, do something.” But it’s not the exercise that keeps you thin when you get older. It is the food. Stay away from the carbs. Protein and vegetables, please. anytime you add carbs, your insulin jumps up. Insulin jumps up. What happens?

The sugar in the body and the blood goes down. You get headachy and tired. And then what do you do? More carbs. And then what happens? The belly gets bigger. What happens then? Less exercise.

You can’t move. Every pound on the belly extra is like 9 lbs extra on the knees. We know there’s studies that show that excess weight can cause knee arthritis. Wow. Go figure, right?

Closing

Dr. Marc Darrow: Well, that’s the end of the show. Thomas, God bless you, man. I appreciate you calling. I’d love to see you. So, if anyone wants to call my office for a free phone consult with my staff and free book, Stem Cell and Platelet Therapy, Regenerate Don’t Operate, the number to my office, 800-300-9300, is Dr. Marc Darrow.

And I’ve been doing this work for close to 30 years. Go to my website you can watch me doing these injections very simple stemcellinstitute.com God bless you all and thank you all for calling in I really appreciate it.

Announcer: You’ve been listening to Living Pain-Free with Dr. Marc Darrow now that you’ve heard Dr. Darrow schedule an appointment by calling 800-300-9300 that’s 800-300-9300 and ask for a copy of Dr. Darrow’s book, Stem Cell and Platelet Therapy: Regenerate, Don’t Operate, or go online to stemcellinstitute.com. Again, the website is stemcellinstitute.com. Living Pain-Free with Dr.

Marc Darrow is heard Saturdays at 10:00 a.m., 1:00 p.m., and 5:00 p.m. here on AM870, the answer. Take the first step toward a pain-free life. Call to schedule an appointment at 800-300-9300. That’s 800-300-9300. Live long and pain-free.

t at 800-300-9300. That’s 800-300-9300. Live long and pain-free.