Regenerative Medicine Explained

Interviewer: Can you tell us about regenerative medicine. What is that? Can you just explain . . .

Dr. Joel Baumgartner: Yeah.

Interviewer: . . . generally what that is?

Dr. Joel Baumgartner: Regenerative orthopedic medicine would be kind of . . . Again it's kind of what pioneers through the future when it comes to orthopedics. In the past, basically, you would go see your doctor, or you've got arthritis in your knee. You start taking some ibuprofen. It's getting worse. We give you a couple of cortisone shots and see if that helps. It's getting worse, the X-rays show that the arthritis is progressing you're losing more of the cartilage. Let's schedule you for that knee replacement next month. The guy is only fifty-five years old and that's medicine of the 1980s.

Regenerative medicine is basically saying the body has an amazing ability to repair itself. A good example is that you're out for a run and you sprain your ankle. Your ankle puffs up, gets real swollen, and you limp for four weeks. The body repairs itself and puts those ligaments back together. The body naturally knows how to do that. 

What we're doing with regenerative medicine is we're taking the signs of the body repair mechanism. We're looking at the biochemistry in the body. We're taking those healing cells, that heal the body; like platelets, growth factors, and stem cells. We're putting those back into a degenerating part of the body. Whether it's a degenerating knee, degenerating rotator cuff, chronic back pain; where the body is getting herniated disks and things are slipping out. We can take all those healing cells, concentrate them down to a healing little biological putty. Put it back in those areas of degeneration and cause regeneration. The regeneration is regenerative medicine.