Ethical Considerations

Suicide in Chronic Pain Patients

A few months ago, a special patient of mine decided that the pain in her body and life was too much and she ended her life. After taking care of patients with chronic pain of one type of another for more than 30 years, like many physicians who care for these patients, I have seen…read more

Steroid Injection Risks: STOP INJECTING PATIENTS WITH STEROIDS!!!

I love blogging about my experiences in clinic, especially the ones that make my blood boil. One of those blood boiling issues is steroid injection risks. This past week, while seeing patients at our licensed, advanced stem-cell-culture site in Grand Cayman, I saw a guy whose hip MRI from December wasn’t that bad. In fact,…read more

See One, Do One, Teach One: Your Orthopedic Regen Med Doctor Likely Has Little Training

This next weekend we’re teaching an orthopedic stem cell training for physicians course in Colorado through the Interventional Orthopedics Foundation (IOF). Maybe because of this, the past few weeks I’ve noticed the different levels of expertise at which orthopedic stem cells are delivered. The problem is that while this impacts the quality of the treatment…read more

Statins and Stem Cells: Barely There Results

Pharma is pretty funny sometimes. They have manufactured a 20 billion-dollar-a-year market on data that would normally get laughed out of a scientific conference in any other area of medicine. Now with major patents expiring on their statin cash cows, their next move to keep the gravy train rolling is called “combination therapies.” This means…read more

Top 10 Questions to Ask a Stem Cell Clinic

Orthopedic stem cell providers are not all created equal. When making the decision to put all of your trust into a stem cell clinic and physician, it’s important that you know the right questions to ask—and just as important that you know whether or not you’re getting the right answers. Our top 10 questions to…read more

Is IV Stem Cell Therapy a Good Idea?

I got an e-mail yesterday from a physician colleague asking about whether IV stem cell therapy for knee arthritis was for real. It hit me that this would be a great blog topic as the number of physicians offering IV stem cell therapy has exploded in recent years. So is this a good idea? Is…read more

Wear Debris in Joint Replacement and Genetic Problems

Wear debris is a big issue in knee and hip replacement as we now have many studies that show that many types of prostheses produce these small particles. However, if you’ve already had a joint replacement or are considering one, a new study should be very concerning. It found that this wear debris can cause…read more

Diabetes Drugs Cause Severe Joint Pain…What?

Diabetes and Arthritis have long been bedfellows. Statistically, people who have been diagnosed with Diabetes have twice the likelihood of arthritis. The FDA recently put out an urgent warning that diabetics taking a whole class of diabetic medication to keep their blood sugar under control are at risk for severe and disabling joint pain.  Huh?  This class…read more