View Dr. Richard Kim’s stem cell seminar that was held on Wednesday, Feruary 21st, 2024.
Interested in viewing more of Dr. Kim’s seminars? Sign up through the website at https://richardkimmedicine.com/webinars-sign-up/
By attending webinars in real-time through the website you will be able to directly ask Dr. Kim any questions you may have in regards to stem cell therapy.Next seminar is Wednesday, March 20th @ 5:00 pm EST
We hope to see you there!
Let me share my screen okay so hopefully you can see me there and then see me on the uh see the slides that are um presented to you here so first of all uh make sure you want to turn your volumes up um and uh in the
Bottom left I believe it’s in the bottom left you can see the Q&A button uh and then that’s going to allow you to an ask me any questions I’ll save uh all the answers for these questions that come up uh till the very end um I’ll have some q&as of of my own
That I’ve collected over the last month from all of the uh our perspective viewers here um so to get started um Dr Richard Kim I’m uh the owner of this practice I’m the physician in this practice um and we hold a monthly uh stem cell webinar regenerative medicine
Webinar to get people to understand what the basics of regenerative medicine is there is a lot to to understand and to learn and to know obviously everybody comes to it from a different vantage point and a different uh knowledge set u but this is really for those who are
Considering uh an option for therapy that’s um quite frankly uh on The Cutting Edge so uh the title of this this talk here is how stem cells solve pain uh we’ll start off actually with a Q&A this is Beth m from area code 518 she’s asked exactly how stem cell
Regenerative medicine works and this is is the big question and I think a lot of people want to understand exactly what is it that we do and exactly how is it that that this um uh holds so much power it’s a pretty common question I’ll move on to this next question because it’s
Very similar Brian K from area code 514 ask how does spine regenerative medicine work how does it does it work in all cases and what is the success rate so regenerative medicine really works by using cells to repair damaged tissue and that is the simplest answer so we use
Cells from your body to repair your body um and obviously there’s a lot of technical things in terms of how we get that accomplished but that’s the basics of it there is a wide range of applications um not all applications work for example if you’ve had a knee
Replacement um you know what we can do for you with stem cells or regenerative medicine is pretty limited U everybody wants to know success rates so really this all depends on a lot of information that you’re able to give me as the patient I need to know about your
Symptoms I I need to know about your severity I need to know whether or not you’ve had surgery in the area and so everybody’s success rate varies somewhat um but obviously you know a lot of that really comes down to uh based on on the the individual when we talk about you know
When when we have pain and how we going to go about solving the pain whether it’s regenerative medicine or surgery or other or sorry regenerative medicine or otherwise we all have similar goals and the and the goals are laid out like this number one we all want to avoid surgery
We all want to under you know avoid undergoing the knife um and then we all know about the long recovery times and the scars that come with it the scar tissue that comes with it ETC number two we want to stop medications if your life is dependent on medications now it’s
Something that we want to get away from and stop using uh third we want an improvement in our quality of life um and we want to improve our quality of life without um without too much uh impediment the common goals here are um that when we
Do uh come to a physician we want a plan and we want a couple of characteristics of that plan we want a plan that’s going to be safe we want it to have low risk we want it to have short recovery and we want to avoid any unnecessary pitfalls
Uh for example really extended recovery times or costs that are just sort of insurmountable and and untenable here’s a couple familiar examples uh we have on in first our retired psychologist uh who flies airplanes for a hobby um he is also a runner uh competitive but also uses it
To relieve stress uh the back pain essentially ended the running so that meant no more comp competition fun stress relief uh the pain was also limiting his flying time which was an enjoyment and hobby secondly we have a chef here and the chef enjoyed spending
Time with the family um but the job is constant motion moving heavy restaurant equipment um and then uh this this pain was also affecting his work and noticed that uh the work days were now becoming increasingly difficult and I actually contemplated uh changing careers traditionally traditionally we were
Missing the target surgery meant it was permanent it was invasive long recovery not to mention relatively poor uh success rates and medications medications also missed the limit steroids we all know they’re a Band-Aid however this band-aid weakens and damages tissue so meaning that if you did repeat steroids you had
Repeat weakening and repeat damage overthe counter medications lessen the symptoms but those effects were often you got to repeat the dose and you’re back to square one all over again two months after our stem cell therapy psychologist was back to running ran the Fourth of July race that we have
Here locally it was a Four mile race ran the 13 minute per mile Pace but uh was happy with uh his time confidence enough to train for for a half marathon with his grandson which we which we see as as the ultimate win in this Chef was able
To return to work going back full-time provide for his family and no further issues this is the issue this is the problem it’s it’s about breaking this cycle when you have pain it leads to further degeneration and when you have degeneration it then leads to further
Pain and then you get stuck in the cycle over and over again and obviously this is uh one of our bigger problems here um our job is really to break that cycle what we want to present to you is the idea of a third solution not surgery not
Medication but a third solution and this third solution comes with a few things number one it comes with a relatively High success rate we it comes with something that that a lot of therapies can’t give you which is many years of relief and lastly it’s a guaranteed acceptance
So there’s no rejection of of foreign bodies foreign tissues it’s all from you back into you and so therefore you have this thing called the guaranteed acceptance this graph on the side is what we typically see in patients it is a progressive and steady improvement from
The time of therapy it just goes and and week after week you’re going to notice Progressive Improvement it is not an overnight phenomenon which is really what the other thing that you’ll be noticing from from that graph so what exactly is regenerative medicine it’s a new field of medicine
And the goal here the functional goal here is to restore but not replace any tissues so if you’re interested in replacing tissue this probably isn’t for you but if you’re looking into restoring what you’re naturally born with what you’re naturally given what you’re naturally uh have
This is the therapy for you to think about this takes basically damaged tissue into healthy and functional tissue now we have a green yellow and red circle here then PRP uh covers the green and yellow meaning sort of mild mild moderate problems and stem cells really we reserve for that yellow and
Red circle which is sort of moderate to moderate severe problems the two basic materials that we like to operate in or utilize is number one platelets and number two stem stem cells these are the different materials there’s a couple of others but I would say by and large that
These are these are what we see and utilize the most here in this uh video um the red in the top right corner is bad material the green is good and this is what we uh see as cells attacking the bad area and this is essentially what is happening when we insert stem
Cells into a bad knee into a bad spine the red is what’s driving your pain your sciatica your nerve pain your shooting type pains and so you can imagine once the green attacks it and gets rid of that uh you’re back to normal and healthy tissue one of my favorite uh ways to
Describe uh what’s happening in your body is the Pacman problem if you can imagine those little pellets as inflammation the Pacman’s eating the pellets one at a time is kind of what platelet rich plasma or PRP does but if you take many Pacman and you put
It all on the screen at the same time um that’s essentially what stem cells do the goal here is not to um beat the level and then play the next level the goal here for us is to beat and leave the problem behind entirely stop playing
The game and to leave the game behind and when we do we’re talking about something that lasts somewhere between five to 10 years and so you’ll see me talk about these numbers but really it depends on what we’re treating and and a couple of other factors where exactly do the stem cells
Come from so they come from you and when they come from you they’ll come from the back of that spinning pelvis there so right now that’s the front and then as it comes around right about there that’s the back and so there’s a bony Ridge that we remove the stem cells from and
For example in the back we’re injecting it into that generative disc to then of course restore uh when a patient decides to do this this is the typical sort of timeline that it follows number one we do the consultation number two we’ll uh do the MRI which typically happens in
Our office uh next we do the first platelet rich plasma then we do the second platelet rich plasma and this is where the stem cells get then one more platelet plasma so if you’re watching this you’re you’re seeing that once you and I uh as the patient and the
Physician decide that we’re going to do this everything pretty H pretty much happens like clockwork so these four next uh events happen um uh pretty much one after another but uh uh um in in this very logical sequence once we’re done Physical Therapy chiropractic care EX exercise is
Going to be what’s involved um and uh it’s just the the progression and Improvement uh somewhere between uh injections number two and three typically so what do we treat um if you’re a patient who is dealing with something like stenosis arthritis degenerative disc sciatica these are the
Exact things that we talk about in our office to our patients every day that we’re addressing every day that we’re solving every day day lower body pains um arthritis pertis meniscus damage Achilles tendon issues uh what about in the upper body absolutely so rotator cuff arthritis tennis elbow carpal tunnel um some
Common issues we see a lot of patients like to ask whether or not they’re candidate so the the basic way we like to think about this is that if it’s something that can be injected or operated on and we can get stem cells to that area that means
Including from the neck to the bottom of the spine and and virtually everything in between what’s important to us is the ability to make a diagnosis and it it really leads to an accurate diagnosis means that you get an accurate location and which means that you’re getting an
Accurate therapy and of course all of our Therapies in order to improve that diagnosis and location all include an MRI and of course we have our own MRI to help make that happen we also happen to be the only regenerative medicine provider with our own M but what if you’ve had
Surgery the answer in short is yes we can still help however a consultation is important and the type of surgery you’ve had is important so what’s important is diagnosis and imaging like we mentioned in the last slide your history your exam is important the the type of surgery whether it’s arthoscopy Fusion rotator
Cuff will impact not only the sort of success you’ll see but the timeline in which you’ll see results and of course things like total joint Replacements unfortunately there’s very little options there uh however um always consultation is recommended so here’s a couple of frequently asked questions that we’ like
To get where will my stem cells come from uh and the stem cells always come from you the patient back into you the patient how long before I can become active so when we hit that third injection that third platelet rich plasma um and as you’re going starting
To go to physical therapy that’s when you uh get returned to activity um and when next question when do I feel the benefits and the majority again majority of the time people are feeling benefits between the second and third um injection uh so sorry the second and third plat rich plasma
And that’s um of course very patient dependent but I would say by and large that’s where the majority of our success is seing how long will the tissue stay repaired on the order of years so anywhere from five to 10 years depending on what’s being injected how well does
This work so the the question about success again dependent on multiple factors including uh what we’re injecting um how severe is your symptoms um how severe does it look on on either X-ray and MRI these are some of the things that that um we care about doesn’t always mean that it’s the direct
Contributor to to to your success but obviously important uh pieces of information so we’ll get to the question and answer section now so Kevin S asked from the area code 607 lower back pain relief from injury how about looking to restore or repair the disc so so to take
A small step back when we talk about disc disease we’re talking about the the jelly um leaving the dut and you can see there where the blue is the disc and the yellow is the nerve the very close uh relationship between um jelly and donut so dis dis dis disease really means
Jelly leaving the dut meaning when the dis uh the disc material the jelly leaves the dut suddenly we call that a herniation when it leaves slowly we call that degenerative disc disease and of course we probably already thinking it well when you have herniation and you have degenerative disc you’re basically
Just uh trading spots sometimes a little bit of herniation sometimes a little bit of degenerative disc and going back and forth and of course that then leads to your chronic pain the point of what I’m of illustrating that that little bit of knowledge here is that what we do helps
Restore the quality of the dis uh disc and repair that disc so you have a much more functional disc and we’ll get on to it uh we’ll see some more examples here in other uh questions Christian D from area code 514 wrote in French but I’m going to read it
In English I have a problem with my left hip severe osteoarthritis I want to know if it’s possible to treat the problem thanks so the answer is yes there’s a wide range of applications hips knees shoulders ankles um and obviously this is the alternative to to having a replacement type surgery especially if
You’re looking to avoid it um and it’s something that that can eliminate replacement surgery not just for um 5 to 10 years like I mentioned but since it is repeatable it really has the potential for you to avoid replacement for the rest of your life uh Victoria asks from 518 how to
Stop the pain so very straightforward uh um uh statement or question but I’ll go back to what I was saying before this really is the third solution it’s not surgery we do it right here in the office uh there are no chronic medications involved there’s no you know monthly subscription of
Something you’ve got to buy once this is done you’re you’re you’re done and we we uh like to see people yearly to come by and say hello and see how you’re doing but um it is a it is sort of a one-time thing Stephanie from 315 said options
And Link the treatment um so again this is our true alternative to surgery um especially for spine um replacement surgeries rotator cuff surgery so all different types of surgeries this this really repres represents a very safe alternative we all know surgery really means a lengthy procedure means a lengthy recovery long courses of
Rehabilitation um and you measure those recovery and rehabs in month and years whereas with hours uh you know we’re we’re we’re done within minutes to to hours um and uh recovery is usually measured in days um and obviously this is a much more attractive uh thing for you especially if you’re looking to
Either regain your quality of life or get back to your quality of life in activity James and shell F from area code 518 my wife has bone on bone in her left knee that is painful what is a pro process if if calling please call after 3:30 on weekdays so unfortunately the
Term bone on bone is is often overused and and when we have patients who come in and have somebody who’s told them that what they have is bone on bone when we look at the actual x-ray or we look at the actual MRI the the frequency is
Never as as often as as um I think people or patients are led to believe it’s only a small fraction um so really when people say bone on bone I I really need to to see the image I really need to meet the patient and I really need to understand
Uh what their pain is even if even if the the diagnosis or or the severity comes out to bone on bone we have helped many in that position so even if you feel like you have bone on bone and you’re afraid that this means that you can’t be eligible for this process and
Therapy not true we’ve helped many in that situation um so because of its severity however if if it does turn out to be bone on bone we do often uh lean towards the St stem cell therapy Salma from area code 514 again in French uh but the English translation
Is I’d like to have an idea of the cost of treating a cervical spondy losis is stem cell treatment the solution sust sustainable for the degenerative osteoarticular phenomenon do you treat yourself to this type of therapy in other countries where the cost of care is lower than the United
States so I wrote translated um the uh answer in French there but the basic answer is that cervical spondy losis and degenerative osteoarticular osteoarthritis conditions respond uh very well to stem cell therapy especially in the necks especially in the low back um personally and I’m I’m I feel like this question was more
Directed to me I’ve had my own knee my own SI joint my own elbows uh my ankle my shoulder treated uh with platelet rich plasma as you can tell I’m pretty pretty rough on myself um and uh and and have had excellent results and and uh you know short downtime return to work
Return to taking care of patients return to going to the gym so so I I can tell you yeah I do know what it feels like and I and I can tell you how well some of these therapies work Joseph M said from area code 514 spine pain for my mother again Joseph
This is the third solution it’s not surgery it’s not medications um for for a lot of people who have loved ones it’s it’s um something to to think about or something to offer to them um and uh uh and and can hold a hold a lot of um uh
Opportunity for for recovery for regeneration and return to activity maryan from 315 said uh my sister-in-law is in great pain most of the time I’m sorry to hear that she has been told she has degenerating disc and bulging disc as well as spinal stenosis I want to
Know what your methods for my own information but also for her so maranne um I obviously if she’s in pain it’s an important thing for me to know where that pain is coming from um but you know when she had has degenerating discs bulging discs and spinal stenosis an
Exam is important for me uh and obviously we’d like to run our own mrri um for you your own information um you know where is your pain coming from if it’s similar to her um for us degenerative dis disease is bread and butter for us so we’re eliminating pain
From degenerative dis disease uh daily if not weekly it it really has has the ideal risk and benefit ratio for us or for our patients because the risk is so small and the benefit is is great and we’ll get into this a little bit more here in
A few minutes um but remember for both your sister-in-law for yourself this is something that lasts years and and for for for us it’s not just something we we’re quoting from some literature we’ve been doing it for for um almost 10 years now and so when I say that we get years
Of of relief it’s you know our experience with it that really helps us um you know say that Robert F from 914 says I have two issues affecting my quality of life torn lateral meniscus left knee responded well to PT but it’s troubling again also foraminal cervical stenos stenosis
Received PT last session about 3 weeks ago before leaving for Florida um continued my exercise and stretching uh to the point where a knee pain outweighs my neck pain I’m sorry to hear that that sounds uncomfortable love to be able to move freely and start playing pickable
66 Aid cyclist can still ride but uh getting up out of the saddle into the pedals hard uh and any heart effort hurts so number one lateral meniscus uh and for medial miniscus too for that matter very common things we’ve treated the meniscus tears are are very very uh
Uh uh common things we see respond incredibly well to the type of stem cells that we do um the big thing with meniscus tear whether it’s cartilage from the articular cartilage or from meniscus cartilage is that you’re in this recurrent inflammation cycle so between that pain degeneration cycle you’re essentially
Caught the issue is is that the I like to use the analogy of the center post and then trying to put cement around it when your lateral meniscus is torn um or cartilage is torn or cartilage is damaged your Center Post is is sort of falling apart and no much
How no matter how much cement you pack around it through Physical Therapy through cycling because the problem within the the center is problematic um uh you it’s a constant struggle of one step forwards and and sometimes two step back and and I can tell you even those who have had
Surgery it’s not always necessarily fixing that Center pose uh for us the stenosis uh example is kind of like the window and extension cord so uh forame and in in in medical terms is just basically an opening and so you can sort of see the Yellow opening above the blue disc
There and where that yellow gets uh sort of like larger um and almost in into that football shape um that’s where the foran is so it’s kind of like what I like to describe as an extension cord leaving a window but obviously you can see when the disc creates problem or
When there’s stenosis coming from from the other side it’s pinching off that nerve and that pinching off of that nerve then creates symptoms that sometimes goes all the way down to your feet um but again our therapy because of what we can do to the disc because of
What we can do for that window and what we can do for stenosis um it’s it’s a it’s a pretty uh remarkable um uh healing and and relief process for us though it’s important for you to know because you are as active as you are um that after our therapy um
There are no activity restrictions so once we’re done uh and after we’re done with our third injection we send you back and we send you out into into activity and and no limitation not cycling no limitation on pickle ball running um you know for those with
Meniscus tears uh so so quite a bit of um Freedom after them William from 518 as uh by some way by way of some background 78 years old staying quite active exercising five hours a week in October of 2011 did diagnos with this bulging at 34 and 5 S1 with moderate
Stenosis in May of 23 was diagnosed with arthritis of the hip and again we see this this combination frequently are the treatment results permanent how long do the treatments last what is the downtime what are the possible problems that can arise from the treatment and what are the success rates for the above
Conditions in my age category so I’ll I’ll try to um go through all of these um in in timely manner here so number one the the again I said it before but the extended relief that we are able to give people is is measured in years and
Even if it were to come back um totally repeatable so let’s just say it lasts you seven eight years you can repeat the whole thing next thing is is downtime the downtime for us uh is is you know measured in days versus surgery is typically measured in in in months um
The risks for what we do are relatively low we we’re talking about because everything happens through a needle it’s about the same level of risk for let’s say an epidural injection success rates for us are generally very high um the but the specifics matter I will tell you
However because you asked about age age does not matter for us we’ve had patients as old as um 90 90 95 undergo the spine stem cell process do well on the other end back to driving going grocery shopping for herself and so so you know age really isn’t as much
Of a factor as as I think um others would have you believe Keith from 315 dealing with neuropathy and sciatica for years like to hear about do what Dr Kim has to resolve these issues um been to chiropractice neurologist neurosurgeons concerned about the success rate and the
Recovery time so again U when we talk about neuropathy and sciatic let’s review a little bit of the anatomy that blue disc there and that those two yellow sort of bulbs that’s how close the dis is to to the nerves and you can imagine if you have a disc herniation or
A disc bulging into those areas you can create what is basically neuropathy and sciatica and so even if you’ve had it for years my guess is that it’s progressively worse even if it’s even if it’s in a very small sort of way our therapy because we’re addressing
The root problem so the root problem in in a lot of neurop intica is not so much the nerve but the dis underneath it that is pushing into the nerve and because we we’re addressing the root problem um you know we’re we’re creating a solution
That that um uh is is lasting a much longer time period um unlike epidurals or steroids you know which have this very short shelf one um I will tell you though that nerves are time sensitive meaning that even if if you’ve had it for a couple
Years what you don’t want to do is cross over into the threshold where nerve damage then becomes permanent and yes that is possible and if it does become permanent I will tell you doesn’t matter what I do doesn’t matter what the surgeon does it doesn’t matter what doesn’t matter what the chiropractor or
The neurosurgeon does bringing back a nerve once it has had that sort of damage is a uh sometimes not possible and B even if it is possible takes an incredible amount time I talking about years to see that kind of recovery we’ve had a recent similar case
Where a patient had what we call paresthesias uh numbness and tingling um down the down the leg um and you know within a few weeks was was pretty quickly watching those sort of symptoms um uh disappear um and and so you know a lot of times we can see those those sort
Of results fairly quickly Christine from 518 ask interested to learn about therapies for chronic neck shoulder back fascia related pains that have not been resolved by ablations trigger points Physical Therapy Chiropractic Care acupuncture so right um so when people have multiple pain sites um it sounds like somebody has not
Found the reason why you’re having pain so you’ve got pain in the areas um but why are you having them and where they coming from obviously consultation is important um but you know some of what you’re describing does sound like potentially something like a degenerative dis or arthritis or
Stenosis of the spine so meaning that you sort of have a central problem but then it’s leading to neck leading to shoulder and leading to back fascia problems and you’re right you try ablations you try trigger points and and nothing really um is solving it because
You’re not getting to the root of the problem um and for us because m included our in within our therapy and in our process it really helps us to understand what is driving any one person one person or patient’s pain um and that and that’s an important part to
Remember um let let me just say one more thing if you’re not getting an MRI or the the provider is not offering you you an MRI you you are probably getting suboptimal uh results because if if you’re not knowing where if if the physician is not knowing where the the
Injection is going or how best to approach that that location um that that matters that matters dearra and Susan both asked a similar question here area code 518 for deardra 518 uh sorry 514 for deardra 518 for Susan more info on regenerative medicine had two spinal fusions on
Medications um uh and Susan asked can stem cell therapy y with pain after neck and back surgeries my my favorite analogy in this is something uh like the the school project where it’s a group project um if you’ve ever been in that situation where you’ve had other partners with you but
Then there are some people who don’t do the work and so now you have to do more work that’s essentially what uh Fusion does for your spine and what I mean by that is you develop something called adjacent segmental disease meaning that once you fused one level the level below
It and the level above it now have to do increased work for the flexibility that you just lost because of that fusion and I get it sometimes you have to do the fusion because there isn’t a choice but the unfortunate outcome from that is that within a few years people then go
On to develop pain again if you actually look at a spine surgery success rates um the first second third and fourth uh surgeries have a success rates of somewhere between 543 15 and 5% so greatly diminishing returns but if somebody told you look um you had a 50
54% chance of success from a surgery you know that’s almost one and two these aren’t exactly the sort of numbers that we want to see BBB from 941 as stem about stem cell therapy for the knee so again broad range of applications spine and knee for us happen to be very common because
Those are also what’s commonly complained of um you know in the community for us therefore spine and knee excellent outcomes and it’s what we understand the most understand the best um but um you know that that just goes along with what we see Richard s
From 904 says how to deal with back pain so Richard I’d say to you look you need to get to a consultation with us um it’s more than just a chance for for us to meet you and you to meet us it it really is for us a chance to find your
Problem and whether that’s from the spine through x-rays or MRIs that helps us strategize and create a plan as to how exactly we’re we’re going to um both find your problem and then and then solve it um and and I think that that sort of says you know what what you want
In a doctor you you want a doctor that’s going to find your problem and not just your solution even if you don’t come to us or to me you know that’s that’s probably a good founding principle um they should be focused on the diagnosis first always Richard s is that the same sorry
Uh somebody else asked and I don’t have the name here asked about spinabifida Ulta spinalis and arthritis so spinabifida for for um the patient or the person who asked for this is uh you know is as you very well know or those who are listening it was a an an inherent
Genetic at the time of birth sort of issue so very different than what we call spondo listesis and arthritis those two conditions are things that you’ve developed over time so we really need to have that conversation and to figure out where this issue is coming from and and
How best to help you severity is very important to us you know especially for the spine of bifido what exactly uh were the the the long-term um consequences from from your spine oido uh and again consultation is key in having that conversation with us Denise from 607 said just saw the
Commercial for us and having scoliosis degenerative dis multiple surgeries implementation for spinal cord stimulators hit a roadblock concerned about performing any sort of surgery due to past for uh past surgeries including spinal fusion um as you may become worse or become paralyzed that and that’s that’s a that’s an unfortunate and and
Really sort of scary Outlook uh they won’t help me they won’t keep me on as a patient either to monitor any changes that occur and I’m sorry to hear that and sorry to hear that you sort of feel abandoned that way um for us uh we have helped many
With those who’ve had continuing pain after surgery or continued pain after stimulator for what we do doesn’t uh add any hardware and again you know what we do is you know non-surgical doesn’t involve chronic medications and has results in the last 6 to 10 years so for things like
Scoliosis uh something we see very commonly and help a lot of people with um and so don’t let the fact that you’ve had surgery or stimulators placed uh deter you we can still help uh Richard s from 518 uh says Dear Dr Richard Kim can you help me if I have
Most my lumbar fused I have most of my lumbar fused I’m 54 had a pudendal release a performa syndrome release on my right side horrible pain buttock pain burn pain and burning down the back of my leg uh outside of ankle strapping feeling on my toes pins and needles and
My other leg strapping feeling once in the toes uh in once in a while the toes have pins and needles most of the time fighting this ongoing for six here so so Richard you you’ve got a complex problem um and you know as I was saying before
Nerves are are time dependent um it’s important to know that you’ve got all these additional branches uh some that involve the pudendal nerve or the peris um important information for me is where is your Fusion do you have any EMG information that goes along with this
And to us two things matter when it comes to nerve damage number one it’s how long you’ve had it uh and number two whether or not there’s a wax and way component meaning that sometimes it’s there sometimes it’s not there um and so for you it sounds like you do have this
Sort of wax and Wayne component I I wouldn’t wait much longer Richard I I I I’d get a consultation with us let us um let us get involved let us really sort of figure out where and to what severity you have because if if there is help to be had
Uh you want to apply it sooner rather than later the more you delay the more um that nerve damage can can obviously become permanent Mike from 51 Mike D from area code 585 two anular tears it’s been one year three injections looking for a solution so right this is the
Unfortunate problem with steroids that they’re not Solutions they’re they’re these temporary band dates and the way we think about steroids in our office is that the first one lasts three months the second one 3 weeks in the last one three days so it’s diminishing returns
And you can see sort of here what a herniated disc or what an annular tear leading to a herniated disc can do that red is sort of pushing into that nerve and of course that nerve is is meant to to you know uh be a happy nerve and
Instead uh this disc is is causing uh inflammation irritation and and then of course further symptoms but for us stem cell therapy is a and I’m going to call it a semi permanent when we talk about something that lasts you know up to 10 years uh
For us we we’ve treated annular tears on the regular this is something we we just even saw today um and and responds incredibly well to our stemell therapy Paula from 514 uh H said chronic back pain from arthritis scoliosis possibly now possibly degenerative disc cortisona injection into the
Facet uh last one in 2022 do not want surgery some days the pain is above a 10 Paul I’m sorry to hear that that you’re in such pain but the pain to us in the back is kind of like a bag of sand with nails buried into it so when you reach
In and your hand hurts you might have pointed out where one of the nails is but then you don’t know which nail it was so you remove one and then you reach back in what I’m trying to say is yes you’ve had a facet block but you’re talking about arthritis scoliosis
Degenerative disc so you have all of these different things that cause pain and if you just do a facet block unfortunately it’s incomplete when we do our therapies we are comprehensive so we are not only treating the disc we’re treating the foren the nerve the tunnel the facets
The ligaments the muscles the tendons in our three injection series we are injecting It All We Are Chasing it all we we are addressing all of these things that create and cause your pain so it’s not surprising that you’ve had facet blocks and pain is either back or worse
And you don’t want surgery and and I can understand that and from 518 said got degenerative disc athritis between L4 to S1 as well scoliosis interested to hear uh what Dr Kim has done for others with my condition so um uh you saw in very early
On the psychologist and and the the chef that we’ve helped very similar problems that you’ve had the the problem with the dis okay so this is the problem with the disc and you can see this sort of faint picture in the background but the dis has cartilage above and below and we
Call those cartilage layers end plates and that’s how a disc receives nutrition through through the end plates however when you disrupt the disc or you disrupt the end plates the nutrition isn’t getting to the disc and so your the disc just progressively degenerates gets worse and worse over time what we’re
Doing is we’re returning the nutrition ability for that disc not permanent obviously if you have to repeat it within 10 years but for a long enough period of time where the disk function your back function function your quality of life function returns so what we want to do is not only eliminate
In in the inflammation but develop the blood supply so for us you having scoliosis is probably a contributor and I know somebody else asked about scoliosis for us scoliosis is an important thing to understand but we want to know how severe it is to what degree it is you
Know how many how many degree Bend uh has it caused and is it purely you know lifelong or was it from degenerative disc over time so important questions for us and what we want to know uh so Cindy s asked about from 518 asked Can you can I help with sciatica
Pain so as you’re seeing the the picture here you’re you’re going to note I’m going to go back again where the nerves um come out of the spine and uh head down the body and what I’m going to show you is that the sciatic nerve is made up of these multiple branches that
Come together and sciatica can occur where the branches start right or it can happen where they are all combined in your in your rear end sometimes even in the back of your thigh sciatica just represents what you’re feeling in that sciatic nerve now where that problem is coming from is the
Bit is the other question for a lot of our patients they’re coming from of course closer to the disc and up higher where where the roots are if you can imagine the nerves are simply wires from the spinal cord down to the muscle sciatica is the damage
Along that path so where exactly is that damage coming from obviously you saw the close relationship between dis and nerve and so creating sciatic is not a difficult thing once you have degenerative dis of course for us nerve and I’ve said it before is it temporary versus permanent damage so
Part of that is of course how long you’ve had it and we want to know we want to know these pieces of information because we have a then we’ll have a better understanding of how well we can help you Juan from 315 said will this
Help for my pinch nerve in C5 to C6 so exactly the same thing before so you saw the dis relationship to nerve and of course this is a good time to talk about the treatment Gap where a lot of people um have steroids and then there’s really nothing left but then surgery so
Obviously between those two stages of therapy is this giant Canyon and in order to cross it it’s this giant leap of faith and it’s also where neither the steroid nor the surgery sometimes are are very good options that’s where we come in we fill that Canyon with uh with stem cell and
Platelet rich plasma we all understand that the risk of surgery is not small especially up in the neck area there’s a lot of structures up here quite important um for us we really feel that and we know that stem cell has that excellent risk to benefit ratio we’re
Talking about something with needles no cutting no general anesthesia no hospitalizations um you know recover from home so there’s a lot of advantages here just in in in how these therapies compare and stack up to both steroids and surgery Mike from 51s 514 asked uh stem cell therapy for spinal stenosis yes
Very successful ful treatment uh reason for us something that we treat quite commonly um but obviously for us an evaluation is important so we encourage you to make that consultation that initial consultation Mindy uh area code 518 back pain for probably 25 years now it’s in the neck hips leg pain liver
Issues so drugs are not an option sorry to hear that Mindy I need to be able to sleep painfree and just be able to enjoy life more so even if the pain first of all if the pain has been present for decades that doesn’t stop us that
Doesn’t deter us we’ve help people with 30 40 year long back pains now the the health issue so those with liver kidney lung and heart issues are ideal for this because you don’t have to go to a hospital you don’t have to undergo um general anesthesia in fact
We had somebody who brought their home oxygen today and we did stem cells of her spine and she was able to talk to us through it she uh walked out of here on her own her own power and you know as she continues to have that Improvement
She doesn’t have to have that exposure of a hospital or that exposure of general anesthesia medications and of course we’re all talking about quality of life you want to improve your quality of life just like all of our patients and that’s what really what we’re focused on Tina from 438 says for house
Stem cell works for who the pros and cons this is my one of my uh favorite um analogies as well so if you can imagine that your knee your disc is a messy pocketbook and a functional pocketbook um it is not because there’s such a such
A mess in it what stem cells do is they go into that pocketbook and they basically clean it they organize it they toss out all the junk so that you have this functioning pocketbook so you have this functioning bag so that’s essentially how stem cell works and I
Showed you from the the Pac-Man um idea it’s it’s it’s sort of me saying it in just a different way what’s great about this is that this works for just about everyone and I say almost in quotes because obviously there’s a few people that it doesn’t but by and large for for
Almost everybody it does the risk benefit ratio again quite ideal Damian from 518 says what determines whether stem cells will work for mytic and stenosis how long between procedure and relief how long does it last cost free assessment so consultation will will reveal the extent of your stenosis in sciatica it’s really
Hard to appreciate that over you know a question over email um really need to meet you in person to to get that and everybody’s individual factors uh vary um in whether or not the stem or how well the stem cells are going to work for them you can see the results of stem
Cells as quickly as one to four weeks typically not everybody but I would say the majority of our patients are are within that time frame again last 6 to 10 years um and when it comes to the free assessment um uh I I’ll explain more about that in our
Last slide here Beverly from 315 says herniated dis l45 experiencing pain sciatica going down mostly in the leg 7 years old had this prom since July 5th so you’re a little bit more recent but I’d probably put you into the now chronic pain C category you’ve been
Dealing with this now seven months we talked about the difference between herniation versus degenerative disc it’s this problem where even though you have one you’re at risk for the other and then of course it just slowly gets worse and worse as you bounce back and forth of course nerve and time equals damage
And so therefore get that sooner evaluation rather than later age to us 7y old is not a factor and we’ve helped patients as young as 17 and as old as 95 all right so this is our last slide here so for being a a an attendee for
Our webinar I’m offering for for you guys a free consultation um but the the one thing that I’m asking is that you call by Friday at noon Friday at noon our office closes um so you have uh a couple days here please mention that you saw us on the webinars um and and
Schedule that consultation for our next webinar will be held on Wednesday March 20th um here’s some contact information for us 518 871 9900 uh for here in the states and for um uh the people north of us uh in in Canada 514 697 8919 our web page is Richard kimm
Medicine.com our webinars and including this webinar which is recorded in all future webinars it will be found at richardm medicine.com webinars and if you’re interested in just having an MRI in order to bring to us more information you can schedule that on your own don’t need insurance don’t need anything we or
The cost for us is $350 per MRI and anybody can do it doesn’t matter if you have insurance not insurance no insurance Canadian not Canadian doesn’t matter um and you can find that at Richard kimm medicine.com MRI okay so I have two q&as here and I’m going to get to them now
Uh Bob Bo said what type of anesthesia do you use when performing the injections so for us uh we do not do general anesthesia it’s all local you are meant to stay awake all the way through and the reason for that is there are certain questions during the process
Where I need to ask you and you have to be able to answer me so that’s an important part for us so um being able to to um be conversive with us a lot of people fall asleep because we also give them medications ahead of time and so
They do go into that sort of colonoscopy kind of Twilight uh space but a lot of people are are still able to talk babo asked a second question you gave the timeline but didn’t say if that is in weeks or months yes you’re right so um
And then then asks what are the costs so the timeline is that those three injections are typically done within 6 weeks not everybody follows that exact protocol but that is what is general and when you ask about cost bab I don’t know what we’re treating I don’t know the
Severity of what we’re treating so for everybody that that that cost is different U but obviously when you get through a consultation with us um we’ll have that uh outlined for you uh board iPad 29 third question here can we bring an MRI report from somewhere else
Absolutely so if you do have a disc or you have an MRI report uh from the past we want to know generally if you’re not if you have uh not had an MRI within the last three months we do perform our own MRI because we want to get that upto-date
Information as close to the stem cell date as possible to understand exactly what it is um you know that that we’re dealing with what locations are uh are are causing your pain uh board ey P ad 29 put in a fourth question here is the PRP stem cell treatment covered by
Health insurance so unfortunately it is not and I should back up by saying we are a direct pay practice we do not participate with any insurances um and secondarily um there is no code to build the insurance and so even when we did participate insurance it was not something covered anyways and that’s
True not just of of our practice but regenerative medicine um you know Countrywide so that’s one of the unfortunate downsides at some point we hope that it will be um but as of yet uh we’re not there okay so I’ll give uh people a couple minutes to to answer uh ask any
More questions um and if you have questions I’m happy to to answer all right okay I think we’re probably set then uh in terms of questions just wanted to thank everybody for uh attending the the webinar and again um you know we’d love to hear uh from you
And in in in scheduling a consultation and the next uh webinar is March 20th until then uh have uh have a good rest of the week everyone