Patient Advocacy

Confounding and the Biopsychosocial Model

As I blogged a few days ago, the biopsychosocialists are back. We dealt with these theories in pain management and orthopedic injuries a decade or more ago, but advances in pain research made these theories go away or at least fade into the background. Now, they have again surfaced in a new physical therapy viral…read more

Can Cholesterol Drugs Cause Low Back Pain?

Cholesterol-lowering drugs are a huge business. If you’re a cardiologist, you’ll likely argue with your dying breath that these medications have revolutionized medicine. On the other hand, the data continues to mount that the positive effects of taking these medications are puny and the side effects are real. This morning I’d like to go over a new…read more

A New and Research-Based Corticosteroid Consent Form

Since the research continues to mount showing that the high-dose corticosteroids physicians inject every day into the spine and joints can and do cause harmful side effects, I recently mentioned on LinkedIn that malpractice could soon be an issue. Meaning that the side effects of steroids are so bad, that at the very least, we…read more

Liveyon Review: Does Its Regenerative Medicine Product Contain Live Stem Cells?

Video: Liveyon, according to its website, bills itself as “the exclusive worldwide distributor of a regenerative medicine product that is derived from umbilical cord. This product contains cells, stem cells and growth factors which may serve as a therapy for various degenerative diseases/disorders.” Today, I’m going to provide a review of a white paper the…read more

Naturopaths and Stem Cells

I sit on the board of several organizations, and these past several weeks, the topic of teaching naturopaths in regenerative medicine has come up. It was an important discussion as naturopaths have managed to get laws in several states allowing them to perform minor surgical procedures. I opposed this because of some substantial differences in training…read more

Is It Legal to Get Cultured Stem Cells in the U.S.?

This past month, I had a reliable source tell me that two companies offering same-day fat stem cells have begun offering more. In fact, they are providing a culture-expanded stem cell product in the U.S. I’ve since been able to confirm this based on what’s appeared on the website owned by one of these groups and what…read more

The Side Effects of Orthopedic Surgery: Doubling Down at the Great Orthopedic Surgery Casino

What are the side effects of orthopedic surgery? One of the more disturbing things we see in interventional orthopedics is patients who have undergone multiple aggressive types of orthopedic surgery. The behavior is a bit like a gambler at a casino. If you don’t hit it big the first time, keep doubling down until you…read more

Hand Surgery Side Effects That Can Easily Be Avoided…

If you’ve ever wondered why sometimes I seem to be a bit “anti-surgery,” you would only need to spend a day with me in clinic to find out why. We see surgery train wrecks day in and day out. What makes them so upsetting is that most of the time, the surgery could have been…read more