Stem cell therapy helping heal without invasive surgery

JACKSONVILLE, Fla – Southeast Orthopedic Specialists is now offering Regenerative Medicine, in the form of Stem Cell Therapy. This cutting edge technology harnesses the bodies innate healing mechanisms found in adipose, platelet, and bone marrow tissues and focuses them in powerful ways.  In combination with traditional orthopedic approaches it offers patients exciting new ways to treat common orthopedic conditions. By utilizing your body's natural ability to heal itself, patients have experienced positive results without enduring the traditional surgical procedures.

Jeff Nykerk loves the game.  He's been playing tennis since he was 10 years old  and he's good too. He's a competitive tennis player, who's still winning, despite an injury that caused a meniscus tear, a couple of years ago.

"A lot of pain I had to ice it quite a bit.  My knee would lock up after just sitting in a position for ten minutes or five minutes.  Trying to get up it would hurt quite a bit," says Nykerk

For a man with tennis is his blood, pain was not going to keep him off the court.

"I looked for things like injections and different type of pain medicines, ice nothing really seemed to work for me," says Nykerk.

Determined to find something that would work he sought out a different option he talked with his doctor about regenerative medicine.

"Certain cells in the body have the ability to facilitate healing and help improvement and function.  So cells like platelets which are tiny little blood cells that circulate in your bloodstream are loaded with growth factors so when you concentrate them and inject them in the area of injury they stimulate regrowth and healing," says Dr. Stephan Esser

Esser is an orthopedic surgeon at Southeast Orthopedic Specialists.  He says it not only makes sense but the research backs the treatment.

"The number of studies to come out in the past five years is probably 500 times higher than it was previously.  It's just so rapidly building up and it's very exciting to see that," says Esser.

There are several approaches that Dr. Esser uses.  In Nykerk's case he harvested bone marrow from his hip, isolated the stem cells, modified them and re-injected them into the knee.

"They sit there quietly until they're called upon to work.  What we do is harvest them and then concentrate them, when we concentrate them it's almost like you're bringing together all the master carpenters and putting them in one room together to work on something and try to fix it," Esser.

Nykerk is already feeling the difference. He had to take a two week break after the injection and then slowly increased his activity.  But pretty soon he says he'll be ready to compete again.

"Swelling has gone down probably 80 percent, mobility is up 80 to 85 percent. I still feel a little bit of the clicking in the knee which will go away and every day it gets better," says Nykerk.

Depending on the treatment patients see the benefit for one to eight years.  Not all patients are candidates for this type of treatment.  If you want more information call Southeast Orthopedic Specialists at 904-881-4396.   It's not covered by insurance and can run anywhere from 600 to 4,000 dollars.