Is It Possible to Regenerate New, Healthy Cartilage to Help My Knee Osteoarthritis?

More than 32 million people in the United States suffer from some form of osteoarthritis. Worldwide, it affects 15% of the population over age 30, and numbers are rising: by 2050, nearly 1 billion people around the globe are expected to have osteoarthritis, with osteoarthritis of the knee increasing 75% by then.

If you’re one of the people with this condition, you know there’s no cure. You can try to slow it down by losing weight and doing exercises, but you’re only putting off the inevitable.

At Carolina Joint and Arthritis, we want to change your prognosis by helping your body regenerate new, healthy cartilage in your knees to reduce your pain and increase your  mobility.

Here’s how we do it.

What is knee osteoarthritis?

Your joints have natural cushioning called cartilage between your bones. The cartilage acts as a shock absorber and keeps your bones from rubbing together. Over time, though, this cartilage can wear away, leaving your bones to rub more closely together, which results in pain, stiffness, swelling, and limited mobility.

Age is the biggest factor in developing osteoarthritis; obesity, genetics, and repetitive stress can play roles as well.

Treatments usually include exercise and physical therapy to strengthen the muscles around your knee, over-the-counter pain relievers, steroid injections, and eventually, knee replacement surgery.

Can you regenerate new cartilage?

However, if new cartilage could regenerate between the bones of your knee, your pain would decrease, your mobility would increase, and you would avoid the need for knee replacement.  

Dr. Austin Yeargan has spent years developing orthobiologic treatments that do just that. His Nanoplasty® and Mechanical Axis Deviation Procedure (NAMAD) harvests bone marrow cells (including mesenchymal stem cells), which are then combined with other advanced healing cells and injected in front of and behind the cartilage that remains in your knee.

These cells then go to work doing their natural job of healing, repair, and regeneration of new cartilage and bone. This treatment is so powerful because it’s harnessing the healing power already inherent in the human body. There are already cells doing this work; NAMAD supercharges the process by providing more and stronger healing cells to the injured area.

As the new cartilage develops, you’ll notice your knee feeling and functioning the way it did before osteoarthritis. If you’re ready to try an alternative treatment for your knee osteoarthritis, our team at Carolina Joint and Arthritis is ready to help. Just call our Wilmington, North Carolina, office at 910-659-9597 or book your own appointment online anytime!