Back in 2011 my wife tore cartilage in her knee randomly while we were out for a walk. She totally sheared it off and was in intense pain. We were so scared for her.
She ended up finding out about an experimental treatment where they would take blood from her bone marrow (back of her hip) to access her body’s stem cells, run the blood in a centrifuge to separate those stem cells from the rest of the blood, and then inject those stem cells back into her at the site of your injury. Naturally, it wasn’t covered by insurance but we scraped together the money to make the trip to Colorado and do the procedure on both of her knees (she’d had prior injuries on her other knee too).
The procedure was intense and she spent several weeks in dual unloader braces to maintain room in her knees for the stem cells to work their magic. It was a lot for her - and us - to go through, but we’re 14 years on the other side and she had a bit of a scare with one of her knees the other day and had to get it MRI’d and the doctor said her knee looked perfect, great for her age even!
Our bodies are amazing. I wish more treatments like this were widely available and covered by insurance. But I remain joyful that her body healed from such a traumatic injury.
PS - I shared this after Cenk shared the news of his injury. Feel free to DM me if you’d like to know the name of the treatment, I didn’t include it because I didn’t want this to be an ad for them.