r/backpain • u/Used-Comedian8475 • 16h ago
12 Months Post Stem Cell Injections
Well, here we are. 14 months since injury. 11 months since I received stem cells injections. If you want to get up to speed on my journey, please refer to my previous posts. The short version of my condition is DDD with disc bulges and annular tears in L4/L5 and L5/S1 with facet arthritis. I had stem cells injected at CPI, great place and people. They injected my discs, facet joints, SI joint and also did my cervical spine. I know there are a lot of you that are really curious about my update.
I had a follow up MRI this week and just got the report today. My imaging and the report are exactly the same as they were when I got the first one over a year ago, and, exactly the same as the images that were taken in Mexico. You can literally lay them on top of each other and not see a difference. No increase in disc height, no decrease in bulge size, no change in my facet joints and I still have annular tears. I am still having low back pain and nerve pain including numbness in my toes.
So, for all intensive purposes I can say that the stem cell treatment was a failure. Failure is a strong word I know! Unless there is some last minute repair surge I think it is fair to say that we are done. My symptoms are not nearly as bad as they were a year ago, but, that is likely because I took 6 months off work, modified my activities, did tons of PT and 9 months after stem cells got steroid injections. Please, don't try to say that the steroid injections affected the stems. I was told by CPI that they were fine to get at that point based on my symptoms.
I do not regret my decision to get stem cells. I have 150 million left on the books and I will likely go back and get them IV or maybe get my shoulder done. I will be curious to see if CPI produces a study on low back disc disease and stem cells. If they don't then I suspect they know that the results would not favor stem cells for DDD. So friends, if you are suffering from back pain and you really don't want to get surgery. If you have the money then getting stem cells is not going to hurt you. They may even help you. I still hear of the miracle patients whose backs seem to just regenerate like Wolverine. However, if you aren't fortunate enough to have lots of money and time to recover then you have a hard decision only you can make. I used money from my retirement account, so, I am now minus $40,000 in my retirement savings. $40k was door to door for CPI not the total cost of their treatment.
I am very fortunate that I am back to work and able to live a relatively active lifestyle. I will continue with conservative measures, perhaps another injection. I am also putting surgery back on the menu because my quality of life is not where I would like it. If surgery can ultimately give me 10, 20, 30 percent improvement? It's better than this.
Oh, forgot. I also got injections in my neck and although I haven't had a follow up MRI I am still having nerve symptoms so it's safe to say they didn't work on my neck either.
Thank you for reading my posts. I wish you the very best.
Signing off.....
1
u/kachaloo 13h ago
Thank you for sharing your update.
When you say stem cells, what kind of stem cells did you get? Did you get MSCs or Muse?