Stem cell therapy kind of peaked in popularity five to 10 years ago, when before we could really see outcomes and results. It’s very rare for me to do a stem cell injection at this time, as frankly, there’s just not good evidence to support that it’s really helped that many people. So it’s a very expensive procedure.
It has limited risks, but if it’s not gonna work, and I tell my patients we don’t know if it’s gonna work or think it’s gonna work, then the question is, well, why do it?
For the future of spinal surgery as we progress, I think the current trends will continue in that more and more spine surgery will be routinely done at an outpatient surgery center. That trend has been very strong the last several years, and I think it’ll continue indefinitely. As we found that a lot of these procedures that we thought had to be done in a hospital, really the patients do just as well, or even better if it’s done in a surgery center.
For via disc patients who undergo an injection, sometimes physical therapy can be indicated just for their overall back health. As a general rule, though, the procedure itself doesn’t require physical therapy.
Recovery after a via disc injection is really minimal. Patients need to commit about a half day to having the procedure done just to get to the surgery center and go home. Other than that, there’s no real recovery to speak of in terms of sedation required. It can be either done purely on our local anesthetic or with a very light sedation. Patients don’t need to be put to sleep.
Via disc differs from a typical injection in that most injections are a combination of numbing medicine and steroid. Often just masking the pain. Via disc is actually disc material that goes into the disc and helps restore and ideally regenerate the disc to provide a long-term solution to those patients.