Opening announcement
Announcer [0:00]
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 866-870 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. Darrow’s background, personal experience, and treatment discussion
Dr. Marc Darrow [0:59]
Hello there. going into a great show about how to live pain-free without having a surgery and that’s a conundrum for a lot of people who come to me. I’ve been doing this work for almost 30 years. I was trained at UCLA and it’s very simple. When I was at UCLA, I had a surgery that was on my right shoulder that failed and it made me open up my eyes as to other ways of healing. Back then, we used to send people to physical therapy. When that failed, they went to the surgeon and then they’d come back to us very often with a failed surgery.
And that was what happened to me. That woke me up. I then learned that there are other ways to heal. And back in the days of UCLA, we didn’t think there were other ways to heal. We just thought it was, you know, PT and surgery, drugs, you name it. And I’ve come a long way from there. I get probably about 60 new patients a month and I’ve done thousands and thousands of thousands of patients and we use stem cells and PRP. Very easy. You walk into the office and you get some injections and you walk out. You don’t need anesthesia. There’s minimal minimal side effect.
You get a little bit stiff after the injections. I have injected after my failed surgery. I injected my shoulder that healed up the next morning. I did my wrist that was 50% better the next day. Later in life, I’ve done both my knees. I’ve done my elbows, my wrist, both shoulders. I’ve had other doctors do my neck and back, all of my ribs. As a young gymnast, my body was pretty much pulled apart and beaten up. So, this work that I do has been a blessing not only for me, but for thousands and thousands of patients over the years. So, I’m really excited to do it.
I’m happy to be in the office every single day doing the injections and making people happy. That’s what life is all about, making people happy. And, I’ve been fortunate to have had a career that does just that. So, I’m going to give out a copy of my book, Stem Cell and Platelet Therapy Regenerate, Don’t Operate. The foreword is by Suzanne Summers. It’s a couple hundred pages about how to heal without having surgery. And it’s got, I think it is, I’m looking at the book right now, 264 scientific studies on how to heal using PRP, using stem cells, and how to stay away from surgery.
And a lot of people come in, they want surgery, and that’s up to them. I’m not going to tell them not to do it. I just tell them that the side effect profile is very high. And I’ve seen some terrible things. I did lots of orthopedic surgery in my training. And I never became certified because after my shoulder surgery that failed, I’m like, I’m out of here, you know? I’m going to go do something where I think I can help people instead of hurt people. And I’m not putting down surgeons. I say that on every show and to everyone I talk to. I love surgeons.
They do the hardest work in medicine. That’s a grind. you’re on your feet sometimes 12, 15 hours a day cranking out these surgeries. But most of them don’t need to be done anymore. And the studies now show that if you do things like let’s say a meniscal tear in your knee, the results come out the same if you have the surgery or you don’t. So why take the chance of screwing up your knee with the surgery that removes tissue when you can just get simple injections of PRP? That’s platelet-rich plasma or stem cells. The PRP is so simple too.
We just draw your blood and we spin it in a centrifuge. We aspirate off the the platelets and the plasma and then we inject that. That’s why it’s called plateletri plasma. So, let me see what’s going on here today. Give out the phone number for those you want to talk to me live. The phone number in the studio is 866-870-5752. That’s 866-870-5752. And for those of you that maybe are driving, don’t want to call in, you can always call the studio. I’m sorry.
You can always call the office and the office number and you get a free phone consult with my staff and a free copy of my book stem cell and platelet therapy regenerate don’t operate. Suzanne Somers says on the cover of PRP and stem cell therapy might just be what you are looking for. This book could change your life for the better. And she’s saying that from experience. I worked on many areas of her body and I worked on her son Bruce. I worked on her grandchildren had very great success with all of them. Everywhere I’ve injected on my body I’ve had great success with.
It’s not going to work on everybody for many reasons. And you can actually watch these I’ll get to the reason shortly, but you can actually watch these procedures on my website which is stemcellinstitute.com. stemcellinstitute.com. There are lots of videos of me injecting there and there are also spots on every single page where you can email me and ask me questions. I get back to every question every single day quickly. So, I stay in close communication with my patients. Everybody gets my stem my cell phone number as soon as they walk in the door. And I tell people, call me anytime you like.
I stay up late and I like talking to my patients. I’m not a real social guy, so my patients are sort of my social life. So, I’m going to go to one of the questions that came in from the website stemcellinstitute.com.
Written question: Left rotator cuff with four tears
Dr. Marc Darrow [7:00]
And this one says, “Torn left rotator cuff.” Let’s see what this person has to say about that. I have a torn left rotator cuff that I would like evaluated. Has four significant tears. last MRI showed it is possible to repair with arthroscopic surgery or total surgery replacement. Whoa, that’s harsh. I don’t see many shoulder replacements that come out too well. Some of them do, but that’s not a great joint to replace. Not that I like any joint replacements unless it’s absolutely necessary. And what does necessary mean? that’s up to the patient. these these procedures, these surgeries are what we call elective.
Elective means that the patient gets to choose if they’re going to do it or not and what’s going to be done, not the surgeon. So be very careful. You know, go to chat GPT if you like, go to Google or whatever you want and look up these things before you jump into a surgery because many of the results with surgery just are not that pleasant. And I can tell you that from my own experience with my shoulder surgery. I was out of commission for about four years until I learned about this at UCLA and injected myself and was healed the next day. Most of the healings are not that quick.
I’m a fast healer and like I said, I’ve used this all over my body. I’ve had great quick results, but not everybody does. And some of the reasons for the failures are that people are too active too quick. I had a woman come in yesterday and she had a left lower sided back pain and she said it didn’t go away. And I said, “Well, you were active afterwards. You actually called me the next day and said you had pain.” And I said, “Well, that’s kind of unusual because her pain moved around somewhere else.” On examination yesterday, I pressed the area where I had injected. That pain was totally gone.
She had healed in the last couple weeks, but she had other areas and she had X marks with a magic marker and those were not areas that she even was aware of or that I had injected two weeks before when she’d come in the office. So, it’s the day after she had had her injection, she had called me said she’d been active and I said, “I told you in the office, don’t be active. Let the tissue grow in. These cells that are coming are being put in need to grow. It’s like when you I always tell my patients if you if you plant seed, you don’t step on it afterwards.
You let it grow in. We have a caller coming in. So, let’s take that and see if this person has a question for me. Are you ready, caller? I can’t tell. I’m looking at the caller screen. You can put this person on, please. Well, let’s do it anyway. Ready or not, let’s do it. That’s okay. I’ I’d like to talk to the person now. Get the show going with the caller. Thank you. Michelle, are you there?
Michelle: PRP versus stem cells and persistent knee pain after surgery
Michelle [10:24]
I am.
Dr. Marc Darrow [10:24]
All right. Cool. do you have some questions about stem cells and PRP? Do you have any pain in your body?
Michelle [10:30]
Yeah, I do.
Dr. Marc Darrow [10:32]
I’m sorry. I’m sorry that you have pain, but I’m glad to hear you have questions.
Michelle [10:37]
Yeah, hopefully that helps. I was curious about when you use PRP, how does it produce stem cells and how different are those from the ones that you would be injecting if you went straight to to stem cells?
Dr. Marc Darrow [10:55]
Well, the bone marrow produces stem cells and it produces platelets. So they’re always in a sense leaking into your blood supply but not enough of it is concentrated in the blood in itself to just heal on its own completely. However, all of us being human beings, we are mechanical. We are biological. We’re all going through injuries and healings all the time. You know, we bump our arm, we sprain our ankle, blah blah blah. And most of those things heal up. We’re not even aware of many of them. we tweak ourselves and then they heal and that’s part of that process.
But when someone has an injury or arthritis and I inject everywhere from you know basically the head all the way down the body to the bottom of the feet all the joints you know neck back shoulders elbows wrist fingers hips knees muscle tears ankles plantar fasciitis gamer’s thumb all these things you hear about we can inject and stimulate more tissue growth. So by injecting either PRP platelets or stem cells, we’re concentrating the cells.
So it’s different than just what is ruminating through your blood, which is on a more dilute level, that does a lot of the healing for us already, but when you have an injury that lasts, and you didn’t mention, Michelle, where your injury is and how long it’s been there, how what is it and how long?
Michelle [12:27]
It’s in my knee and it’s been there for probably 20 years, but I had some surgery and I would say it’s sore.
Dr. Marc Darrow [12:34]
Okay, I’m sorry to hear that the surgery made it worse, but you know, God bless people and God bless the surgeons. I hear it all day long. I’m not going to give you an exact percentage, but I’d say probably maybe a third to half of my patients have had a failed surgery. Okay, that means a surgery that didn’t work or made them worse. And there is actually a diagnostic code that insurance companies have as an example failed back surgery. That means there are so many surgeries that failed that the insurance companies have a diagnostic code for it.
That’s it’s insane, right? so so my question is why are all these surgeries being done if so many fail? And that’s I’m going to throw that out to the public to think about.
I have my ideas you know a lot of it is about the medical industrial complex and what drives medicine what drives the world is money you know people don’t make a fortune out of doing regenerative medicine with PRP and stem cells but they do make a fortune out of doing these surgeries they’re very very expensive and in my humble opinion most hospitals would go bankrupt without the surgeries being done but that’s my humble opinion you can have yours Everybody can have their opinions. That’s fine with me. So,
Michelle [13:55]
can I share something real quick?
Dr. Marc Darrow [13:56]
Yeah, please.
Michelle [13:58]
My surgeon told me she would never do anything that she has her patients do.
Dr. Marc Darrow [14:05]
What does that mean?
Michelle [14:09]
Oh, she said she was a minimalist, but apparently she doesn’t believe in what she does.
Dr. Marc Darrow [14:14]
Whoa, that’s harsh. And you know, I would think
Michelle [14:19]
she said it.
Dr. Marc Darrow [14:20]
Yeah, I get that. And I would think I’ve I’ve I’ve done lots of orthopedic surgeries, been around orthopedic surgeons for lots and lots of years, and I don’t get why they’re doing these surgeries. And you have your orthopedic surgeon said she wouldn’t do to herself what she did to you, and you came out worse. Was it a meniscal?
Michelle [14:40]
[She told] me that afterward. [laughter]
Dr. Marc Darrow [14:42]
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the studies showed these surgeries are not good for people. If you have a broken bone or something, go get a surgery, you know, but these neck and back surgeries, these knee surgeries, shoulder surgeries, I just see too many of them fail. So, and again, I keep saying this is my humble opinion. I’m not telling anybody else what to do. People come in, they say, “What should I do? Should I get these treatments you do of stem cells and PRP or should I get surgery?” I go, “That’s up to you. I’ll educate you on the information, the research, but you’ve got to decide.
I’m not going and people say, “I want you to tell me.” I go, “I’m not going to.” And they get mad at me. And they go, “You know more than I do.” And I go, “I might, but I don’t want you getting mad at me because if what I tell you doesn’t work the way you want, you’re going to blame me.” So my job is not to tell people what they want, what they should do.
Michelle [15:31]
May I ask you another question?
Dr. Marc Darrow [15:32]
As many as you like.
Michelle [15:37]
how does the healing process and pain level compare between PRP and stem cells?
Dr. Marc Darrow [15:45]
That’s an impossible question for me to ask because there’s no studies on that specifically. I can tell you my anecdotal information after doing this for almost 30 years is that the process is exactly the same in terms of you get an injection, you walk out. Okay. The amount of discomfort you have afterwards or during the injection process is similar with PRP platelets or with stem cells. There’s no difference at all. It’s just the healing seems to be a lot faster when you mix the stem cells with the platelets. Did that answer that question?
Michelle [16:22]
You mix the the stem cells with the what?
Dr. Marc Darrow [16:25]
Well, we mix them together. We mix the PRP and the stem cells together. I don’t do stem cells alone.
Michelle [16:32]
You can do PRP alone. If you do PRP alone,
Dr. Marc Darrow [16:36]
yeah, I can do PRP alone. Sure.
Michelle [16:37]
Similar.
Dr. Marc Darrow [16:38]
Yeah, similar. It’s you won’t know the difference if if you had PRP alone or PRP with stem cells. You wouldn’t know the difference in the injection process or the you get a little bit of a stiffness afterwards overnight. Usually by the next day it usually lightens up. It’s not something that keeps you immobilized, but you do feel a little stiff. And someone like you who has more pain after the surgery than you had before, you’re probably stiff right this minute, right?
Michelle [17:08]
Mhm. Yeah.
Dr. Marc Darrow [17:09]
Yeah.
Michelle [17:10]
Yeah.
Dr. Marc Darrow [17:10]
So, yeah. Yeah, those are great questions. Hang on with me, Michelle. I’m going to give out get some other callers in here. the phone number to the studio right now to talk to me, Marc Darrow, MD live is 866-870-5752. The studio again is 866-870-5752. and you’ll get a free copy of my book, Stem Cell and Platelet Therapy: Regenerate Don’t Operate, if you call in.
It’s got the foreword by Suzanne Summers, who I worked on for years on and off different parts of her body, worked on her family, had great results with them, and you can always go to the website stemcellinstitute.com and ask me questions through there, and I answer those. The office number if you want to get a free phone consult with my staff. They’re there now. You can call them now is 800-300-9300. The office is 800-300-9300 to get a free copy of this book and a free phone consult with my staff. Go ahead Michelle.
I think you had another question and you be feel welcome to answer as many questions as you like.
Michelle [18:25]
So question for you is how would you compare the quality of what’s going to come out of it of the procedure with PRP alone versus stem cell PRP?
Dr. Marc Darrow [18:41]
I’ll put it like this. If I’m going to inject myself, I’m going to use them both. Is there an exact degree of healing that I can tell you is better? No. But my experience because I’m an old prolotherapist which we used to use dextrose concentrated dextrose before we had platelets to use and before we had stem cells and that was inferior to the PRP because I used that on my body all over the place and I’ve used PRP and I’ve used PRP and stem cells all over too. I am an avid athlete.
I’m I still get injured. you know I don’t I don’t quit and when something starts hurting I keep going until I can’t use it. So I still injure myself frequently and I still inject myself. Okay. So I probably have more experience than any person on the planet about getting these injections because I can do them to myself. So you’re the answers, you know, unfortunately, Michelle, the there are no answers to your question that are going to satisfy you other than me telling you anecdotally from my experience that stem cells mixed with PRP works better than PRP alone. And I’m sorry that I don’t have more definitive information for you.
When the studies come out, I’ll let you know. We’re going
Steve: Right knee arthritis, varicose veins, and treatment timing
Dr. Marc Darrow [19:58]
to jump ship here. We’re going to go to Steve from LA. Steve, I understand you have arthritis in your knees. Is that true?
Steve [20:07]
arthritis in the right knee.
Dr. Marc Darrow [20:09]
Okay.
Steve [20:10]
And what I feel what brought that on really bad is two years ago when I was going to put packages in the back seat of a car, my foot stepped at a like a 90° angle, you know, like a triangle.
Dr. Marc Darrow [20:26]
Yeah. Yeah.
Steve [20:27]
Part of it was on the pavement and part of it was on the dirt because there was a plant in the dirt, you know, in the sidewalk. Yes. And I violently swung to the right, left, right, left. Never.
Dr. Marc Darrow [20:38]
Okay.
Steve [20:39]
And I didn’t fall, but I was holding about 15 lbs of groceries in each hand.
Dr. Marc Darrow [20:45]
Okay. How long ago was that, Steve?
Steve [20:47]
Two years ago.
Dr. Marc Darrow [20:48]
Two years. Okay. Hey, but my my other
Steve [20:51]
thing though is if if anything to do with stem cells, I was reading you should get I’m going to go in and have somebody look at my leg cuz I have varicose veins around the calf and the ankle.
Dr. Marc Darrow [21:06]
Okay, that’s not a problem at all. Nothing.
Steve [21:09]
That has nothing to do with
Dr. Marc Darrow [21:10]
No, no. What I do is I use an ultrasound to look inside the knee. So, if you have fluid there, I can numb it up. And you won’t even feel this. And then we can aspirate out the fluid. With the ultrasound, you can see every single drop of fluid. Never let anyone aspirate anything in your body unless they’re using an ultrasound cuz they’re digging around and hurts like hell and they don’t even know what they’re doing. It’s blind.
Steve [21:35]
If I have my but if my varicose veins don’t look good, shouldn’t I be doing that first?
Dr. Marc Darrow [21:41]
No, no, no. That’s what I was going to get to. So, I use the ultrasound to avoid any kind of varicose veins or lesions of anything like that. And then I can direct the needle exactly where it’s supposed to go. The varicose veins have zero to do with your arthritis in your knee. Okay.
Steve [21:57]
But I think that’s what’s causing my pain though, I think.
Dr. Marc Darrow [22:01]
Well, that’s different than your knee if it’s varicose veins.
Steve [22:04]
Well, I have both problems.
Dr. Marc Darrow [22:06]
Yeah, you have two problems. I don’t deal with varicose veins. You can do that one on your own. There’s doctors that specialize in that, but that has nothing to do with your knee.
Steve [22:14]
So, let me ask you a question. If I do the varicose veins first, how long? I don’t know if they would do a, you know, I know there’s different procedures or they can seal it off or or do a laser or whatever. If I have a procedure and it goes behind the knee and right near the calf and down near the ankle, how long do you have to wait after a varicose vein procedure to do a stem cell with the knee?
Dr. Marc Darrow [22:42]
Well, theoretically they could be done at the same time. It’s just up to your up to your surgeon, whoever is doing you know the varicosity removal to decide.
Steve [22:55]
Aren’t they they’re separate surgeons, aren’t they, for
Dr. Marc Darrow [22:57]
No, but what I’m what I’m trying to tell you is I don’t think you have to wait other than after your your veins are removed, you’re going to have a little pain. You’re going to want to chill for a while, but you could theoretically I mean, I’ll give you an example. I was in a a car accident I think it was 2018 and my face was smashed up, my nose was broken, my eye was lacerated and I had two different surgeons working on me at the same time. One who did the the nose putting the nose back into place and cleaning that up and the other was an eye surgeon.
Okay, so they work together. So yeah, surgeries theoretically could be done at the same time. And the reason they did it together was because we wanted to clean all of that up at one time. Now for you, you’re not going to have two guys working on you at one time. It’s not an emergency. I was in an emergency situation. Do you get the difference, Steve?
Steve [23:58]
Yes. Also, I h I noticed some skin color changes down in around the ankle and the foot. Not
Break and closing announcement
Dr. Marc Darrow [24:06]
that’s something different. That’s We’re going to the break. This is really interesting, Steve. So stay with me and after the break I’ll answer more of your questions about your knee arthritis and how we can help that and about the discoloration in your ankles and all that. And this is Dr. Marc Darrow living pain-free. Please call the office if you want a free phone consult with our staff. That’s 800-300-9300. 800-300-9300 [number corrected from context]. And if you want to call me live at the studio, that’s 866-870-5752. We’ll talk to you right after the break. Hang with us. Thank you so much. You’re
Announcer [24:43]
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 announcement
Announcer [0:00]
Whether you have pain in your back or joints, surgery may not be the answer. Instead of the dangers involved in cutting out tissue, consider healing and rejuvenating the area with stem cells, platelet-rich plasma, or prolotherapy. The treatments that are available to professional athletes are now available to you. Watch the videos at stem cellinstitute.com or call the stem cell institute in West Los Angeles at 800-300-9300. 800-300-9300. That’s 800-300-9300.
Steve continued: Leg discoloration and knee arthritis
Dr. Marc Darrow [0:42]
All right. Dr. Marc Darrow on Living Pain Free. We’re here to educate you on how to avoid an orthopedic surgery. emergencies you’ve got to get done, but elective surgeries I would say stay away from until you talk to someone who does stem cells and platelet rich plasma because that’s a much easier way. It’s just simple injections. You walk into the office, you get your injections and walk out. Very minimal side effects, a little bit of stiffness overnight and typically the next morning which fades away. So Steve, I’m going to bottom line this because we have some other callers here.
The discoloration in your legs can be from what’s called venous insufficiency. It could be related to your varicose veins. It could be related to a heart issue. And if you want to get in direct contact with me because I know you have knee arthritis. Go to the website. Go to my website stem cellinstitute.com and just send me an email. We have a spot on every page to email me and I’ll get right back to you and give you more information. But we have other people waiting and I don’t want to keep them waiting. So, God bless you for calling in, Steve.
And there’s good hope for healing that knee arthritis pain that you have also. So, Melanie Rose,
Melanie Rose: Craniocervical instability and ligament damage
Dr. Marc Darrow [1:56]
what’s happening? You got any issues with stem cells or PRP you want to ask about?
Melanie Rose [2:01]
Hi, Dr. Darrow. So do stem cells help heal craniocervical instability and severe ligament damage in the cervical spine?
Dr. Marc Darrow [2:15]
Let’s do the first one. Cranial cervical instability. Okay.
Melanie Rose [2:20]
Mhm.
Dr. Marc Darrow [2:22]
We deal with patients that have that all the time. And a lot of doctors kind of overhype what the condition is and they will go into the area that’s very very dangerous to put platelets and stem cells. I’m not a fan of that. I don’t like dangerous procedures and we find that by going a little bit lower that we can also heal the same issue by stabilizing the ligaments that way. So I don’t know if that answered your question or not, but the answer is yes. It can be helped quite a bit. And I didn’t catch what your second question was. I apologize. What was it? Please repeat.
Melanie Rose [3:00]
Okay. can stem cells heal even a very serious ligament?
Dr. Marc Darrow [3:07]
Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don’t know what the word serious means, but you can have torn ligaments that you can have torn tendons. Ligaments and tendons are both the same thing other than the ligament attaches bones to bones and the tendons attaches muscles to bones, but it’s just pieces of collagen. It’s like rubber bands in a way. But yeah, I’ve had one of the first cases that really woke me up was years and years ago. I had the number one golfer at UCLA on the men’s team come in and he had a torn triangular fibrocartilage in his left wrist and he couldn’t play golf.
He had so much pain and he went to the UCLA surgeon and they said if we operate there’s only a 50% chance you’ll ever play golf again. So he didn’t go that route and he came in to see me and his pain was gone very quickly. He had a couple of treatments and then he had to go back to the surgeon at UCLA on the from the golf team to be cleared to go back to play golf. So they did another MRI and that triangular fibrocartilage was completely healed. So it’s all the same kind of tissue. Melanie, it’s all collagen. The body’s made out of collagen.
You know, the muscles have it, the tendons, ligaments have it. And believe it or not, it’s in our it’s in our eyes. It’s in our blood. It’s in our hair. There’s different types of collagen and yes, the stem cells can heal all of these things. Now, depending on the severity of what it is, it might be an issue in getting it healed up. And for an example, we have a lot of people that come in with rotator cuff tears in their shoulders or meniscal tears in their knees. Those are very common labral tears in the hips. And as an example, my shoulder has two rotator cuff tears.
So those tendons are torn and I have a labral tear. This is in my right shoulder. I have zero pain. How can that be? So that’s a that’s a mind twister for most people. The reason is because you can’t do an MRI to find out where pain is. And I know that’s our medical system. You know, the surgeons get an MRI and they go, “Look, there’s the problem. That’s your pain. Let’s operate and fix it.” And then we get all the people where it didn’t work because it wasn’t the problem to begin with. And my shoulder is a perfect example of that.
I did inject my shoulder after a failed surgery. The pain was gone. I still have the tears. It’s not about getting rid of the tears. It’s about healing the pain generator. There’s no correlation that I can find between images and pain. That’s unless it’s something unless it’s something like a broken bone or, you know, something that’s very gross like that.
Melanie Rose [5:52]
Yeah. And and the issue with my condition is it doesn’t show up on a laying down MRI.
Dr. Marc Darrow [5:57]
It won’t what won’t show up on on MRIs because what you have is very subtle. It’s just what we’ll call you know a stretched stretched ligaments in the neck. And we can help that tremendously with with stem cells and PRP.
Joe: Knee cartilage, ACL injuries, and hand arthritis
Dr. Marc Darrow [6:14]
So Melanie, thanks so much. I appreciate your call. We’re going to go to Joe who’s been waiting patiently about stem cells for knees. Joe, how are you today, my friend?
Joe [6:24]
Well, I’m doing well, but I wonder how well the stem cells work on knees, especially if people had cartilage damage.
Dr. Marc Darrow [6:32]
Well, we do them all day long, so a lot of people are happy, which means it’s working. and again I have to reiterate that what I just told to Melanie is don’t expect after you get a treatment and you’re healed. Healing meaning you can do whatever you want. You’re pain-free that your image is going to look different. That’s a mind bender for a lot of people especially analytical people like psychotherapists and engineers. They want to know that their image changed and it’s not about the image. Image has very little correlation with pain. So, yes, we work on knees every day.
I’m going to say probably of all the people that come in, most of them, not most of them, that the highest priority are knees for people. We get more knees than anything else. I’d say the the, you know, rolling down the hill, it’s knees first, shoulders second, low backs, and then shoulders are high on the list, necks are high on the list, ankles, hips, you name it. So, we do the whole body. There’s nothing that I don’t inject. And it we can find muscle tears. We can find ligament sprains. You name it, we can find all that with the ultrasound.
And the nice thing about the ultrasound is it guides the needle. It shows us and the patients love this. They can look inside their own body on the screen and they can watch the needle go to the problem.
Joe [7:58]
Wow. What about what about ACL damage? Was that that common?
Dr. Marc Darrow [8:05]
Yeah, we get a lot of people with ACL tears or or partial disruptions or what we call attenuations where they’re stretched out. And it’s very very very very rare that I have had to send someone to a surgeon for an ACL disruption. I did it one time in the almost 30 years.
It was one of the top surfers on the planet and his knee was very loose and he he came to me his wife had come to me and had some treatments and had good success and he came to me and said could you fix this with PRP and stem cells and I go yeah but I’m not going to for you cuz he he surfs like 60-foot waves and
Joe [8:47]
oh gosh
Dr. Marc Darrow [8:49]
and so and and there’s a big drop you know I don’t know if you know what surfing is like but you drop off the face of the wave to do what’s called a bottom turn. And for someone like that, he could rip his knee any day of the week. So if I if I quote fixed him and made him happy and he was able to surf, there’s a good chance he would retear or something else and then I get blamed for it. So I actually did send him to the surgeon. But most ACL ruptures, what we think are ruptures, number one, may not even be a rupture.
And I can often tell by looking with the ultrasound when a patient comes in, if there’s a big amount of fluid in there, when we aspirate, if it’s red, that’s blood. If it’s yellow, that’s hyaluronic acid. And, if it’s blood, we do think there may be a a tear of the ACL, but it could also be a meniscal tear. If it swells quickly, that’s more of an ACL rupture condition because those bleed very profusely, whereas the meniscal tears bleed slower. And so we can tell by the timing and the amount of fluid and the color of the fluid what’s going on.
But I’ve never had to, other than this one person, I didn’t have to. I’ve never had to send someone to a surgeon for an ACL rupture repair. And often times going in when the MRI shows an ACL disruption, you go in surgically and it’s not disrupted. MRIs or are overly sensitive and they’ll show things that aren’t even there. So we have to be very very careful in how we diagnose and how we treat.
Joe [10:25]
All right. Another well actually I have two questions.
Dr. Marc Darrow [10:28]
Sure.
Joe [10:28]
Is that done is that done with stem cells or is that with PRP?
Dr. Marc Darrow [10:32]
I mix them together. We want to do the best treatment we can. PR PRP PR is is great. I’ve used it all over my body and then since stem cells came in, I mix them both when I’m injured and I offer either and both to my patients. They get to decide. So, you decide what you want and we talk about the yays and the nays and then you figure out how you want to do it.
Joe [10:57]
Okay. I suggest a quick question.
Dr. Marc Darrow [10:59]
Yeah, go for it.
Joe [11:00]
Okay. What about arthritis in the hands and joints?
Dr. Marc Darrow [11:04]
Easy. I do them all the time and it’s one of the easiest things to fix on the body. And when I say fix, we’re not going to get rid of the arthritis. We’re going to get rid of the pain. And it’s not like a steroid. It’s not a steroid shot. It’s not cortisone where you just cover it up with a band-aid. It’s growing enough tissue so the hands function well. And I just did one of those yesterday. As a matter of fact, the guy’s an avid golfer and his hands were just beat up like crazy. And I’m expecting he’s going to get really great results within a couple of weeks.
So yeah, we do the whole body.
Joe [11:42]
You promise my golf game’s going to improve?
Dr. Marc Darrow [11:45]
Oh, I don’t promise your golf game will improve. I am hopeful that your pain will reduce or be eliminated by doing stem cells and PRP. Hang with me one second, Joe. I’m gonna give out the phone number so people can talk to me live. We have Jeremy coming up. So hang with me, Jeremy. So the number to talk to me, Marc Darrow, MD live right now in the studio, 866-870-5752. I’m going to repeat it, write it down. If you’re driving, pull over to the side of the road. That’s 866-870-5752. If you want a free phone consult with my staff, they’re at the phones now at the office. That’s 800-300-9300. 800-300-9300.
If you call me now or you call the office, you get a free copy of my book, Stem Cell and Platelet Therapy Regenerate Don’t Operate, with the forward by Suzanne Somers. It’s got 200 and some studies on how platelets and stem cells work and how surgery can fail you. Be careful about those surgeries. I’m not against surgery, but I am against most of these surgeries that are elective that you don’t need to do that platelets and stem cells can heal up. Why do something invasive when you can get a simple injection to heal yourself, right? People come into the office, they get injections, and they walk out.
You don’t need anyone to drive you. You don’t need anesthesia. The side effect profile is absolutely minimal. So, Joe, you said you had another question. Is that correct?
Joe [13:19]
Well, no. I just I got I wrote down the number so I’m good. So I’ll be calling the office. How
Dr. Marc Darrow [13:24]
God bless you man. Appreciate hearing from you. You’re a good guy. Appreciate it.
Joe [13:27]
Thank you.
Jeremy: Bone marrow, fat-derived treatments, and exosomes
Dr. Marc Darrow [13:28]
All right. Dr. Marc Darrow here. Living pain-free. I’ve got Jeremy on the next call. Thank you for waiting. Jeremy, do you have a question about stem cells or PRP?
Jeremy [13:38]
Thank you, doctor. I do have a question regarding stem cells. And forgive me if this is already been answered by one of your previous callers in one of your previous shows, but what are the different types of stem cells? As I understand there’s there’s fat derived, bone marrow derived. what are the differences differences in in potency or or what exactly?
Dr. Marc Darrow [13:58]
Okay, so you probably didn’t hear the beginning of the show. I was talking about what runs the world and that’s called money. Okay, so there’s different doctors that have their hands in different cookie jars. And the ones who do one thing say nothing else works. Okay, they put down the doctors doing things that they don’t do. they’re advertising to you know get some publicity for what they do. I’m not like that. I think they’re all good. My experience has been you know I started out doing you know back in the elderly days when you and I were kids doing prolotherapy with dextrose. You know that’s concentrated sugar water. That worked.
It didn’t work as well as PRP. Didn’t work as well as stem cells. But I started out in the stem cell world doing bone marrow and fat mixed together and I didn’t find that I personally like doing the liposuctions and the patients didn’t love it either. It’s very invasive and I didn’t get as good a results with the fat as I did with the bone marrow. And the bone marrow is really simple. It takes about 15 seconds to aspirate it from the from the what’s called the PSIS which is the back of the pelvis.
So, that’s a very simple procedure. other doctors only do fat and they think that’s the best. They say there’s more stem cells in it, but there’s a study I read that shows too many stem cells slow down the velocity of growth of the stem cells. So, we’re still in what’s called the wild wild west in this world. And I’d love to give you more definitive answers, Jeremy. I just can’t. It’s very much in the hands of the doctor. And there’s a placebo effect also with all healing. So if the doctor believes it, the patient will believe it. Does that make sense to you?
Jeremy [15:44]
That makes perfect sense. And talking about patients experience when I call around various doctor’s offices and inquire about stem cells. Sometimes the conversation gets onto exosomes. Are exosomes the same as stem cells? What?
Dr. Marc Darrow [15:59]
Well, they’re not the same, but they’re produced by stem cells, and they’re little vesicles that have RNA and DNA, and they kind of direct the healing process. So, yes, they’re magical cells. They’re really good when used with PRP and stem cells together. You add some exosomes, sort of a boost. There’s already some exosomes with the stem cells, but if you put a boost of extra exosomes, they’re very, very good and very quick healing. And sometimes exosomes are good for someone that needs to get, let’s say you have a an elite athlete that needs to get back has an injury, needs to go back to their sport tomorrow.
The exosomes can help quiet down the inflammation. So mixing it together with stem cells, stem cells actually create a little bit of inflammation which is part of the healing cascade. It’s kind of a complex thing and you have to talk to the doctor that has the experience in all of that who can define for you what his experience is. I’m not a science guy. Sure, I’m a scientist. Every doctor is. I don’t believe science. I really don’t. I believe what the efficiency is in the doctor’s hands. And if a doctor thinks something works, it’s probably going to work.
And when I first started out doing regenerative medicine, I had a mentor and it was my first knee that walked in the office. I was afraid to inject it because there’s a capsule around the knee that can flare up and cause an effusion. And I said, “What do I put in that knee?” He says, “Put anything you want in there. It’ll heal.” And that taught me a good lesson. By putting something foreign into the body, you’re going to create an inflammatory cascade of healing where the fibroblasts are brought brought to the area and that’ll start a cascade of healing. By day three, we’ll actually see cells growing. Okay.
So, there’s it’s a very complex thing to describe, Jeremy. The guys who are really scientific guys are going to tell you they know what’s going on, but I’ve been doing this a long time. I think I’ve pro I’ve been told I do more than anybody on the planet, and I’ve been doing it the longest. And I can tell you this, I don’t know anything except what empirically works. And what I see works is mixing as much stuff together as you can and that to me shows the best results and that’s what I use on my body when I’m injured. So Jeremy, great questions.
I’m going to go to Fred who’s been waiting here and God bless you Jeremy. We really appreciate your call. I’m going to give out the number here for people that want to talk to me. Marc Darrow MD. the phone number to speak to me in the studio is 866-870-5752. That’s 866-870-5752. You can go to my website and watch me doing these procedures. I’ve got a lot of videos there and a spot to email me on every page. That’s stem cellinstitute.com.
And if you want to get a free phone consult with my staff and a free book which is stem cell and platelet therapy living pain-free regenerate don’t operate and the office number is 800-300-9300.
Fred: Longstanding meniscus and ACL problems with nighttime knee pain
Dr. Marc Darrow [19:10]
Fred how are you today?
Fred [19:13]
Good morning doctor. Thank you. How are you?
Dr. Marc Darrow [19:15]
I’m living it up man. I’m always living it up. I hope you are too.
Fred [19:18]
So I’m trying my best. I’m 65 years old and about I want to say seven or eight nine years ago I was told that I my left meniscus is completely gone and as well as my left ACL. So
Dr. Marc Darrow [19:32]
okay
Fred [19:32]
for the for both of them I was supposed to have surgery several years ago which I didn’t go through with and I because I was sort of recovering or getting rid of the pain on my own.
Dr. Marc Darrow [19:44]
Yes.
Fred [19:44]
And so I let it go. now you know I mean walk normally there’s no [word unclear] there’s no sticking of the meniscus anymore you know none of that but when I do cardio which is daily I try to you know otherwise I’ll gain weight at night I have extremely bad pain in my left knee to the point that I have to hold it with my hands to move it and and so on and so forth. My question is your treatments is does that significantly help my situation?
Dr. Marc Darrow [20:16]
Generally, yes. But I’m not going to promise anybody anything. You know what a promise does for me? A finger in my face later. [laughter] I mean, I’ll tell you how I learned that many, many, many years ago, close to 30 years ago, I injected there was an actress who came and I injected her low back and she got all better. And then I didn’t hear from her for 6 months. And she called me up 6 months later screaming at me.
She I go, “What’s wrong, honey?” She goes, “My back hurts again.” And I go, “You promised me it would never hurt again.” And I said, “I never promised that to anybody.” And then I took out my consent form and I put in a spot that says no guarantees. So my patients teach me what to put in the consent forms. I would never tell anyone that I guarantee anything as a doctor. No doctor should guarantee anything. We don’t know. We can just tell you our best guess based on our experience, you know, empirically what happens with our patients.
So, I’m not going to promise you anything, but I can tell you there’s a high probability with what you’re telling me where you can do cardio means your knee is moving that we can help you get better. How many treatments would it take? I don’t know that.
Fred [21:30]
But I need the first thing is
Dr. Marc Darrow [21:32]
first thing is
Fred / Dr. Darrow [speaker change unclear] [21:33]
it couldn’t get any worse. Well, it it
Dr. Marc Darrow [21:35]
could get worse. Anything can happen. Nobody knows. But that’s interesting you said that. A a man just came in actually yesterday. He was referred by a doctor in Beverly Hills and the doctor who sent him is you know pretty straightlaced [specialty unclear in captions] who’s been sending me a lot of patients yes recently and so the patient has basically has dizziness and they’ve worked him up. He doesn’t have any issues. a little bit of neck pain, but no big deal. And he said to his doctor, “Do you think stem cells would work?” Cuz the doctor said he should come to me.
And the doctor said, “It can’t hurt.” So, you know, it’s kind of a joke, but yeah. I said to the man, he said, “Was is this going to work?” I said, “I don’t know.” I said, “I think it’s going to, but I’ve had tons of people with, you know, dizziness, headaches, and all that, and we find spots on the back of the neck.
Fred [22:29]
What would you re What would you recommend to me, doctor?”
Dr. Marc Darrow [22:32]
I’d recommend you call my office at 800-300-9300 and get a consult and let me look at it. Let me examine it. Let me look with the ultrasound and see what’s going on. That’s the first step. People always email me through the website stem cellinstitute.com and they say, “Do you want to see my MRI, my X-ray, my CT?” I go, “No, I could care less. They mean nothing to me. I got to use my hands to find where the pain is being generated from. then I’ll use an ultrasound when you come in the office and get a better idea.
The fact that your you know that your doctor said your meniscus is is gone or your ACL is ruptured means zero. Anyway, we’re going to the end of the show here. Thank you all for calling in. God bless you all and call the office for a free phone consult with my staff. That’s 800-300-9300. Go to the website stem cellinstitute.com. You can watch me do these procedures on the website and there’s a spot on every page to email me. Dr. Marc Darrow, MD. I’ll get back to you the same day you email me. God bless you all and thank you so much. Living
Closing announcement
Announcer [23:42]
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 stem cellinstitute.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.