What Is Tissue Engineering?
Medical advancements are changing what’s possible in terms of our health and well-being. The most advanced healing system we are aware of is also the oldest: the human body, which has remarkable regenerative potential. Tissue Engineering allows clinicians to harness and target those qualities, resulting in astonishing new treatments for injuries, disease, and pain. Jocelyne Eberstein of eCenter Wellness in Boca Raton, FL, and Los Angeles, CA, has a lot of experience with these new treatments.
What Is Tissue Engineering?
Tissue Engineering is the umbrella term for a set of treatments that use the body’s natural repair mechanisms to construct, restore, or replace damaged tissues with new tissue. Cells, nutrients, and proteins, to name a few, are all part of our bodies’ intricate healing processes. This is why a cut on the skin clots in seconds while a shattered bone heals in weeks.
As we become older, many of our critical internal components wear down or become damaged. We’re not as strong or flexible as we once were, and it takes us longer to heal or recover. Even long-ago traumas might cause pain and impair our capacity to function. Arthritis and diabetes are common causes or exacerbators of these problems. The body’s regenerative abilities are overworked, and it is unable to deliver enough healing chemicals to the right spots to repair the damage.
Medical practitioners that use stem cell Tissue Engineering procedures use a number of therapies to collect healing substances and strategically inject them where they’re needed in the body. When injured tissue is targeted in this way, the body’s healing mechanisms work at the cellular level to produce new tissue to replace it. These therapies have the potential to provide dramatic pain relief and restored function. They are, in many circumstances, not just a viable alternative to invasive surgery, but also the sole viable option.
What Conditions Does Tissue Engineering Treat?
Tissue Engineering has been effectively employed to treat a wide range of ailments. It may one day be able to produce entire new organs, replace damaged heart valves, and even reverse the progression of disorders like Parkinson’s. These methods are most commonly utilized to treat joint and back pain nowadays. It addresses a variety of concerns, including:
- Worn cartilage caused by osteoarthritis
- Knee, shoulder, back & elbow pain
- Rheumatoid Arthritis Inflammation
- Worn down cartilage caused by osteoarthritis
- Pain caused bulging vertebral discs
- Degenerative neurologic diseases, such as Parkinson’s Disease
Is It Proven?
Tissue engineering has been practiced in various ways for decades, while the principle is far older. Stem cells, which are a key component of Tissue Engineering, are cells that have the ability to differentiate into various types of cells in the body. The majority of stem cell therapies use the patient’s own bone marrow or fat tissue.
The phrase “Tissue Engineering” was first used in a published article entitled, “Functional Organ Replacement: The New Technology of Tissue Engineering” in 1991. The treatment refers to a variety of procedures that use natural components from the body to regenerate new tissue.
Is Tissue Engineering a proven healing method? Both yes and no. It has been well-proven in the numerous procedures that doctors utilize on a daily basis to bring healing and pain relief to their patients. However, there are other, more ambitious uses for regenerative ideas on the horizon that will have to be validated through time. This includes imagined future marvels like the ability to produce new organs, cure diabetes, and perform tissue transplants that truly prevent diseases.
What Are the Different Types of Tissue Engineering?
Despite the fact that more ambitious medical treatments are still in the research stages, today’s professionals can help their patients using the following sorts of therapy:
Stem Cell Therapy
Stem cells are the basic units of life in both animals and plants. From the moment we are conceived, they are there in our bodies. A stem cell’s function is to generate new cells. This is accomplished by the way cells “multiply” by dividing into several cells. Part of a stem cell will remain a stem cell when it divides. The other new portion can develop into a variety of cell types, including bone, blood cells, muscles, and nerves.
Doctors can now employ stem cells to mend old or damaged tissue since they have the ability to develop into a variety of different cells. The orthopedic field is where this treatment is most commonly used today. Ligaments, tendons, and bone deterioration have all been proven to respond well to stem cell therapy.
The doctor injects stem cells into the problematic part of the body in this therapy. The treatments last about an hour and a half, and many patients report feeling relieved after the first one. Regeneration might take weeks or months, and in some situations, several treatments are required. Stem cell therapy has almost no adverse effects, and because the stem cells are derived from the patient’s own body, there is little risk of rejection or problems.
Prolotherapy
Prolotherapy is a well-known Tissue Engineering method. A chemical is injected into the problem location by the doctor, just like the other therapies. Instead of the patient’s own bio-agents, a manufactured substance of glucose–basically sugar water–is utilized in the injection.
While the glucose solution is generally safe for the patient, the amount of sugar in the solution that can be applied to the wounded tissue is strongly dependent on the sugar concentration in the solution. The tissues around the prolotherapy injection get inflamed as a result. This sends signals to the body’s repair agents, who rush to the site of the artificially created “injury” and start rebuilding the region with fresh new tissue.
Prolotherapy has been used for decades and has been demonstrated to be a viable alternative to invasive surgery in instances when it is either undesirable or impracticable. The knee, elbow, shoulder, and back are all common targets for this treatment. Prolotherapy effects can be almost permanent for the patient because new tissue is generated at the problem spot.
Platelet-Rich Plasma
Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) therapy is a procedure in which a tiny amount of a patient’s blood is collected and centrifuged to remove platelets. The doctor then injects this concentrated fluid straight into the part of the body that requires therapy. Platelets, one of the body’s most powerful healing agents, are abundant in the concentrated solution.
Platelets are little blood cells with a coagulation function. This is the procedure for clotting bleeding. When a blood vessel in the body is damaged, platelets rush to the location of the injury and block the bleeding, preventing further harm and laying the physical groundwork for the tissue to mend.
Platelets also emit chemical signals that encourage other platelets to join them. Aggregation is the mechanism by which these reinforcements adhere to the other platelets. After the platelets have clotted the injury, the body’s own healing chemicals and nutrients begin to build new tissue. PRP therapy is notably popular in sports medicine, where it’s been used to treat anything from tennis and golf elbow to baseball pitchers’ rotator cuff issues.
Lipogems
Lipogems is a Tissue Engineering approach that takes advantage of the regenerative properties found in our fat cells. Our fat contains a range of cells, including stem cells, capable of repairing or restoring damaged tissues. The clinical case for a Lipogems injection is that the injected compounds, which are derived from human body fat, prefer to linger in the damaged location, extending the healing and restorative effects.
Lipogems treatment is quite similar to PRP treatment. The doctor performs a minimally invasive procedure in which a little portion of body fat is removed and subsequently processed. Blood, fatty oils, and other unwanted components are removed throughout the procedure, leaving only the required fat cells for injection. The refined material is known as lipogems.
Tissue recovery, like many other procedures, takes weeks or months to fully take effect. This is because all Tissue Engineering medicine is built on the concept of creating and replacing new bodily tissue: a process that takes time even when artificially accelerated.
How Do I Know If Tissue Engineering Is Good For Me?
Anyone suffering from pains and ailments as a result of aging or injury could benefit from Tissue Engineering therapy. In many circumstances, the only option is invasive surgery, which is expensive, carries some risk (as does all surgery), and requires some recovery time.
Furthermore, surgery is not a panacea for all problems. A flattened spinal disc, for example, cannot be restored with surgery, but it can be healed with Tissue Engineering. Traditional surgery can cure a rotator cuff problem, but recovery can take up to a year. Tissue Engineering procedures allow the injuries to heal in a matter of months, with minimal downtime.
Finally, even in today’s era of excellent medical imaging, not every problem spot in the body can be seen clearly enough to justify invasive surgery. Many cartilage defects, for example, are hidden deep within the joints, where imaging technology has difficulty penetrating. These therapies may provide a solution to the problem without resorting to more harsh medical measures that may or may not be required.
Where Do I Start?
Sleep: Sleep is a problem for many migraine sufferers. It’s a vicious cycle: migraine bouts and agony make sleeping difficult. When a migraine sufferer does not get enough sleep, it might lead to more attacks. As a result of this cycle, sleep is an important aspect of migraine treatment.
Maintaining a regular sleep schedule can aid migraine management. It’s ideal to stick to the same bedtime and number of hours of sleep each night.
Exercise: Exercise has been demonstrated to lessen the incidence, severity, and duration of migraine attacks in studies. Exercise has even been shown to be more helpful than typical oral preventative medications in several trials.
According to this research, 30 to 50 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity three to five days a week is the recommended amount of exercise.
Eat (Food & Hydration): Consistency is beneficial for our minds. As a result, it’s critical to eat regularly throughout the day, stay hydrated, and refrain from fasting. Fasting has been associated with a decreased threshold for head pain and migraine symptoms in studies.
When it comes to hydration, it’s critical to drink plenty of water to compensate for the water lost through sweating, urine, and other biological functions. Eight 8-ounce glasses of water per day is the typical recommendation. Many migraine sufferers require electrolytes, therefore including sports drinks or Pedialyte in their diet can be beneficial.
Diary: Keep a headache journal and share it with your doctor to get an accurate diagnosis of your migraine and the best treatment options. A migraine diary is a useful tool for identifying patterns that may indicate episodic, chronic, menstrually linked, or other types of migraine, as well as guiding your doctor to the best preventive and/or acute therapy.
Stress: While we all have ups and downs in our daily lives, stress management is an important element of migraine management because stress can trigger migraine attacks. Relaxation techniques, mindfulness exercises, meditations, breathing techniques, and biofeedback can all be guided with the use of virtual programs like Headspace and Calm.
Find stress-relieving activities and, if possible, avoid or restrict the things that cause you tension. Small adjustments in your lifestyle might have a big impact on how well you manage your migraines.
Find Relief Now!
Are you ready to get rid of your migraines right now? The team at eCenter Wellness in Boca Raton is standing by to assist you! Choose the clinic that is closest to you and contact them.
If you’re seeking for a natural, medication-free way to treat your migraines, or if you think our acupuncture therapy could help you, visit our website and get started right now. At eCenter Wellness in Boca Raton, FL and Beverly Hills, CA, we want to help you change your life.