Regenerative Medicine for Craniocervical Instability

When a patient has an injury of the cervical spine for quite a long time and/or in cases of Connective Tissue Disorders, conservative treatment may be not sufficient.

Because ligaments are too weak, muscles tend to tense up in order to compensate, so they get exhausted. For some patients therapies such as Physical Therapy can work counterproductive as you try to make the muscles stronger while they are overworked. This means muscles get even more exhausted and patients get worse.

In these cases when a patient can’t tolerate conservative treatment, it is better to strengthen ligaments. This can be done by Regenerative Medicine, where joints get injected with dextrose, blood platelets or stem cells. It is been said ligaments can’t heal, but Regenerative Medicine has been successfully applied in for example knees, hip joints and elbows. It can also be applied in the cervical spine. Although it is still an investigational method, the results are – depending on each patients’ background – hopeful and many patients feel better after a few procedures. However, Regenerative Medicine is very expensive, not covered by insurances and thus financially impossible for the vast majority of patients, so they unfortunately remain dysfunctional or even bedbound.