BMAC Injections for Joint Pain: A Game-Changing Osteoarthritis Treatment

Osteoarthritis is a progressive disease without a cure. Standard medical care may slow the joint deterioration and help ease your pain, but only up to a point. Meanwhile, your pain keeps increasing, and your mobility gets worse. We have a better option.

Our team at Alliance Spine and Pain Centers specializes in a game-changing treatment: bone marrow aspirate concentrate (BMAC) injections.

What makes BMAC different? It’s a regenerative medicine treatment that eases your pain in a way conventional medicine can’t. It repairs and heals the damaged joint tissues.

Here’s what you need to know about BMAC injections for osteoarthritis.

BMAC explained

BMAC contains concentrated stem cells obtained from your own bone marrow. After we inject BMAC into joints damaged by osteoarthritis, many patients experience less pain and stiffness. Here’s why.

Different types of stem cells thrive throughout your body. Each of these cells can divide to produce a new stem cell. The original cell stays the same, continuously dividing to regenerate more cells. Each new cell develops into numerous cell types.

Some stem cells that thrive in your bone marrow (hematopoietic stem cells) develop into red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets, ensuring you have a constant supply of healthy blood cells. 

Other stem cells in your bone marrow (mesenchymal stem cells) develop into new muscle, tendon, ligament, cartilage, and bone cells. These are the stem cells we use in BMAC to treat osteoarthritis.

How BMAC treats osteoarthritis

BMAC eases your osteoarthritis symptoms through two activities: healing damaged tissues and reducing inflammation.

Healing damaged tissues

When we inject BMAC into a joint, the stem cells regenerate the new cells needed to repair and replace the tissues that have been damaged by osteoarthritis.

Reducing inflammation

Though osteoarthritis isn’t an inflammatory arthritis, it gradually causes joint inflammation. Osteoarthritis develops as the cartilage, connective tissues, and bones deteriorate. The damaged tissues release substances that cause inflammation.

The stem cells in BMAC relieve pain and stiffness by regulating and reducing joint inflammation.

Treatment with BMAC

Before recommending BMAC, we learn about your symptoms and the osteoarthritis treatments you’ve already tried. We also evaluate your joints and determine the extent of the tissue damage.

Then, we recommend the next step in your treatment. We suggest BMAC treatment or another option, depending on the severity of your symptoms and the stage of your osteoarthritis.

If you decide to have a BMAC injection, we schedule the procedure and give you some instructions to follow. For example, if you’re a smoker, you need to stop 30 days before your treatment. You may also need to stop taking some medications the week before your injection.

We begin your BMAC treatment by obtaining bone marrow from your hip. We apply an anesthetic, insert a hollow needle, and aspirate some of the marrow, pulling it up into the needle.

After isolating and concentrating the stem cells from the bone marrow sample, we draw your BMAC into another needle. Then, we apply a topical anesthetic, insert the needle into the arthritic joint, and inject the stem cells.

We give you self-care instructions to follow after your injection that include avoiding strenuous activity for four weeks and following a healthy diet and lifestyle.

Do you need help for osteoarthritis?

BMAC injections may relieve osteoarthritis pain even when other conventional therapies no longer help. Call our nearest office today or use online booking to request a BMAC consultation.