IFBB Pro Eileen Wells Finds Relief for Her Back Pain From Bulging Disc

Eileen is an IFBB Professional Fitness Division Athlete who began to experience stabbing lower-back pain and numbness into the top of her foot when exercising. An MRI showed a dark disc at L5-S1 with a tear and a small bulge. Her facet joints were also beginning to get arthritic.

She tried two sets of epidural steroid injections, but each only helped for one or two weeks. She also consulted two surgeons who said that if the pain continued to worsen, the next step was a low-back fusion with screws and rods.

In April 2015, she met with John Pitts, MD, at the Centeno-Schultz Clinic. The focus of his treatment plan at that time was on using the growth factors from her own blood platelets to perform epidural and ligament injections to help stabilize the L5-S1 area. But Eileen only had partial relief. She was able to get off pain medication, but she couldn’t return to her previous high level of physical activity. 

Since she had a tear in the disc and met the other requirements, Dr. Pitts recommended the Regenexx-SD procedure, concentrating her bone marrow aspirate and combining that with ultrahigh-concentrated platelet mixes and injecting that into her two lowest discs, facet joints, and ligaments under X-ray guidance.

Six months after the injection, she posted a video to Instagram of herself doing some acrobatic high-five push-ups. “I owe you guys big-time!” she wrote to Regenexx. “I couldn’t be happier with my results.”

What Is an IFBB Professional Fitness Division Athlete?

The best way to answer that question is to watch Eileen do what she does:

#highfive #pushups @urban_acrobatics #foreverfitnessco with @harley_handstand

A video posted by Eileen Wells (@eileenwellsfitness) on Mar 27, 2016 at 10:25am PDT

This is how she notified us of her six-month post-injection status! Here’s her post:

eileenwellsfitness@regenexx here’s my 6 month #progress video after having#stemcell #injections in S1–L5 & L5–4 & several rounds of #PRP #thankyou for a#successful #procedure#centenoshultzclinic

regenexx@eileenwellsfitness Whow! Amazing!

eileenwellsfitness@regenexx I owe you guys big time!!! I couldn’t be happier with my results; my stem cells, my plasma—no scars, no hardware!

Just so you can get a sense of how the hip hop part plays into Eileen’s story, here’s that part of her six-month report:

#eileenwellsfitness @hb_fitness #pushup #challenge we need #creative #ideas for our new #IFBB #NPC #fitness #routines #calisthenics #whatyougot #bringiton #eileenscomeback #muscleeggstrong

A video posted by Eileen Wells (@eileenwellsfitness) on Mar 30, 2016 at 8:54pm PDT