Should You Get Surgery to “Fix” Hip FAI? A Test of Construct Validity

If you read this blog, you know that I often write about what I experience on a day-to-day basis as a clinician. This weekend a hip surgeon on Linkedin and I went back and forth on the topic of why so many people without pain have FAI on their imaging and whether that means that…read more

Rest in Peace Arnie

This week the field of regenerative medicine lost a true luminary and the founder of the field, Arnold Caplan, Ph.D. professor at Case Western, passed away peacefully on January 10th at the age of 80. Today I would like to honor this man who changed so many lives for the better. The GOAT The term…read more

Should You Get an SI Fusion?

SI joint fusion is all the rage right now. My last in-depth update on this topic was in 2019 and 2020. My conclusion back then was to ask why we were fusing the SI joint when we can easily treat lax ligaments through injection with far fewer complications. However, since then SI joint fusion has…read more

Getting Your Shoulder Injected

Regrettably, 90% of “stem cell” procedures involving the shoulder only place cells into muscle trigger points without guidance. That’s very incomplete care and usually a rip-off for the patient. So what should be injected? The joints using ultrasound or fluoroscopy Any bone sites with swelling using fluoroscopy Tendons using ultrasound guidance Ligaments using ultrasound Labrum…read more

What Does an Advanced Knee Treatment with Orthobiologics Look Like?

All too often these days, someone with knee pain ends up at a clinic where they blindly inject something into the joint. However, real advanced orthobiologics care using PRP or stem cells involves placing these substances precisely in various parts of the knee. Let’s review of few of those spots: Intra-articular or inside the joint…read more

What Constitutes a Real Orthobiologics Spine Treatment?

There are a huge number of clinics out there claiming to offer advanced orthobiologics spine treatment. However, most of these clinics aren’t doing that, but instead injecting ligaments and muscle trigger points. Why would someone get this kind of simple treatment and not get all of the other myriad structures in their spine that can…read more

Medicare Finally Handcuffs the Birth Tissue Scammers

It’s taken several years of tracking the great birth tissue scam to see it finally come to some conclusion. When we last left off, the scammers who tried to get Medicare reimbursement for things like Wharton’s Jelly to treat knee arthritis had hit a serious snag. Now that little problem has turned into a massive…read more

Are Umbilical Cord “Stem Cells” a Thing?

Let’s say you’re in a US clinic and someone offers you stem cells from Wharton’s Jelly? Is that for real or fiction? Based on the existing research, it’s not real. While Wharton’s Jelly is a component of an umbilical cord that can contain stem cells, the US products being sold to clinics do not have…read more