I often get asked about where things stand with stem cell therapy for back pain, which is the focus of today’s post. Back pain is a complex condition with many potential causes. New treatments are needed as existing approaches often don’t work that well. What about stem cells? Stem cell therapy or other cell therapy …
Does it make any sense medically or scientifically to use stem cell therapy for pain or neuropathy? There isn’t much solid evidence that this is a good way to go. However, there’s a vast scope of research ongoing in this area. Stem cell clinics have been earning millions of dollars each year selling this idea …
Fact-check of stem cell therapy for pain & neuropathy Read More »
When I was a little kid I played this game called “connect the dots” or “dot-to-dot”, where you draw a line from dot-to-dot in numerical order and at some point a picture starts to emerge. I think kids and even some adults still play this today. They even come in extreme versions with hundreds or …
Trying to connect the dots on CRISPR baby story paints a dark, cloudy picture Read More »
Stem cells for arthritis and pain are hot topics these days and I’m getting an increasing number of patients reaching out with questions and sharing their situations related to arthritis or pain (or usually both together). I asked one arthritis patient who reached out to me if they would be OK with me sharing their …
Arthritis patient with pain’s email on stem cell clinic & my answer Read More »
Last year I started seeing stem cells mentioned along with the opioid crisis in a particular way, but now recently I saw an entirely different pairing of stem cells with the opioid crisis. The first connection I saw was of a few for-profit, unproven clinic firms claiming that for pain sufferers it would be better …
Does it make any sense scientifically or medically to use stem cells for pain? I’m skeptical in most cases today. The whole idea of stem cells for pain has been on my mind for a number of reasons. For one thing, more stem cell clinics are marketing unproven stem cell therapies at a high price …
A new study on treating pain with a unique stem cell connection caught my attention. The paper was from a team at Pfizer led by Edward B. Stevens. Talk about bench to bedside, these researchers went all the way from patients to patient somatic cells to reprogrammed IPSC to neurons to model pain in a dish …
Pain in a dish? Drug testing bench to bedside with IPS cells Read More »
I started a poll on what PIs dislike most about the NIH grant process. Why did I even do such a poll? I’ve been a professor for 6 years now and even in just a half a dozen years it’s clear that the grant process has become more and more painful. The poll results suggest …
NIH grant process is painful on many levels according to poll respondents Read More »
An unproven Georgia stem cell clinic called Superior Healthcare and other co-defendants recently lost a key court case. Some of you may remember that the Attorney General (AG) of Georgia Chris Carr and the FTC have been collaborating on this case. Now we have the good news that they have won the case via a …
Georgia AG & FTC win Superior Healthcare stem cell clinic case, seek $17 million Read More »
A Justice Department press release details how a physician’s assistant (PA) in Texas was convinced of fraud related to amniotic fluid injections. This story tells us some important things about how Medicare handles things versus the FDA approach to such things. Amniotic fluid scam A jury found Ray Anthony Shoulders, a PA at a pain …
Man could get 240 yrs for amniotic fluid for knees Medicare scam Read More »