Recovery After Regenerative Therapies [Video]

About the video: What does recovery after regenerative therapies look like?

Summit Orthopedics’ experts Steven Stulc, D.O. and Kirk Scofield, M.D. discuss that different variables involved in recovery after regenerative therapies.

Meet Steven Stulc, D.O.

Dr. Stulc’s approach: “My goal is to treat patients with a comprehensive approach to their spine related disorders, understanding that improving pain and function can have a tremendous impact on quality of life.”

Dr. Stulc’s education: Dr. Stulc studied at Southwestern Minnesota State University in Marshall, MN for his undergraduate degree, and he completed his medical degree at Des Moines University in Des Moines, IA. Following his residency in the Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation program at Mayo Clinic, he completed advanced fellowship training in Interventional Pain Medicine at Penn State University’s Department of Anesthesiology in Hershey, PA.

Meet Kirk Scofield, M.D.

Dr. Scofield’s education: Dr. Scofield completed his undergraduate studies at Seattle Pacific University in Seattle, Washington. He attended medical school and received his degree from the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle, Washington. His residency was at North Colorado Medical Center in Greeley, Colorado. He completed his fellowship in primary care sports medicine from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Minnesota. A fellowship is the highest level of advanced professional training for physicians.

Expert care

Summit’s team of experts provide innovative regenerative medicine therapies for those looking for an alternative to traditional treatments. They can treat arthritic joint pain, sports injuries, neck and back conditions—creating an environment to trigger tissue repair and healing.

Start your journey to better function and less pain. Visit our regenerative medicine services hub and find your expert, request an appointment online, or call us at (651) 968–5201 to schedule a consultation.

Summit has convenient locations across the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area, serving Minnesota and western Wisconsin. We have state-of-the-art centers for comprehensive orthopedic care in Eagan, MN, Plymouth, MN, Vadnais Heights, MN, and Woodbury, MN, as well as additional community clinics throughout the metro and southern Minnesota.

More resources for you

• Learn more about Regenerative Medicine Services
• Watch the video: What is a Stem Cell?

Video Transcription

The actual injection itself with bone marrow concentrate or platelet-rich plasma feels really no different than any other injection a patient would get. One of the things that will be different for a patient after the injection is that you’re probably used to getting something like a corticosteroid injection, where they may feel pretty remarkable the first hours or even a couple of days after the shot. Whereas bone marrow aspirate concentrate, platelet-rich plasma, or other regenerative therapies actually create a cellular process that’s going on. And there is some acute inflammation, typically, that lasts about one to three days, where patients can reasonably expect to be pretty painful. During that time frame, we can either give them some Tylenol or other pain medicines to get them through it. We want them to avoid things like nonsteroidal anti-inflammatories, like Advil, Motrin, or any other over-the-counter pain medicine, because that can actually blunt, or block, the effect of what we’re trying to accomplish with the regenerative therapies. The recovery after a procedure depends a little bit about where we inject. For a joint, for example, if you have an arthritic joint, usually after the procedure, all we would request is that you just observe relative rest for three to five days or so, so that you’re maybe just not using the joint as much as you normally would. But that’s about it. It usually doesn’t take that much otherwise. In a tendon or a ligament, oftentimes it takes a little bit longer. What we’re trying to do in those situations is, instead of just changing the environment in the joint, we’re actually trying to stimulate a healing process in the tendon, and get the tendon back to normal, or nearly normal. But that takes a while. After a couple of weeks, we begin the process of kind of working to strengthen that tendon a little bit over time. And that can take a while, sometimes six to 12 weeks of gradual strengthening in order to make that tendon back to the level that it initially was before the injury.

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