Frequently Asked Questions
What Is Regenerative Medicine?
An innovative area within the medical world, regenerative medicine uses biological substances obtained from the patient, or occasionally, from donated sources. These “biological” substances help decrease inflammation and assist injured tissues to repair and heal.
Are There Risks/Side Effects Linked To These Types Of Treatments?
There’s a risk of local soreness, bleeding, minor bruising, and in rare cases, infection. Most regenerative medicine therapies require injection, and there’s always a small risk of the above. However, for most of our patients, local soreness tends to occur, only.
Are Regenerative Medicine Therapies Safe?
When used locally (in-and-around the soft tissues and joints) for musculoskeletal injections, we’ve found these therapies to be safe and effective.
How Long Does Recovery Time Last?
There is no significant recovery time for regenerative medicine therapies.
How Long Before Results Can Be Noticed?
Generally, about four to six months for full results to be noticed, after your initial treatment.
Can Anyone Be A Candidate For Treatment?
Pretty much anyone can be a candidate, exception for the following scenarios:
- Pregnant or nursing women.
- Patients with a compromised immune system.
- Patients undergoing radiation therapy or chemotherapy.
- Active cancer patients.
- Patients that have kidney failure and are on dialysis.
- Pain or discomfort that stems from a total joint replacement.
- If you have kidney failure and require dialysis.
Contact us today if you want to learn more about whether or not you are an ideal candidate for our therapies!
Are There Age Restrictions For Treatments?
Yes. Patients must be 18 years of age or older and meet the health requirements above.
What Is The Treatment Like In Your Office?
Generally speaking, there is no one-size-fits-all for patients. Xcell Life is an integrated healthcare practice. This means, we do not use drugs or surgery to heal you, but we do use many natural therapies from different medical care disciplines.
What Treatment Is Best For Me In Your Office?
At Xcell Life, many of our patients come to us with joint pain problems. The cause of their pain is usually trauma, injury, and degeneration. Our methods are developed by a panel of doctors with our lab partner who is certified by the Food and Drug Association (FDA), and the American Association of Tissue Banks (AATB.) Only after comprehensive screening, do we can determine the best approach for each individual patient.
How Many Treatments Will I Need?
Our patient treatment programs have been successfully used tens of thousands of times. Often, they are individually fine-tuned by our staff at Xcell Life to get the best very treatment results. Generally, our programs last about six months and require three in-office visits.
How Much Will My Treatment Cost?
Each patient and treatment plan is unique, therefore, it’s hard to “quote” a price before coming in for a visit. The good news is that we do offer FREE initial consultations to help determine the therapies needed and for how long. Xcell Life also provides patients with affordable payment options, as well.
What Are Natural Biologics Products?
Natural biologics products are a form of tissue engineering and molecular biology, which deals with the “process of replacing, engineering or regenerating human cells, tissues or organs to restore or establish normal function”. When injured or invaded by disease, our bodies have the innate response to heal and defend.
Harnessing and enhancing the body’s own healing powers is a medical practice at the frontier of present-day advancements whose properties may seem miraculous to those who benefit from them. The miracle, however, is the result of scientific exploration that has begun to unlock and utilize the body’s extraordinary ability to heal and restore itself.
How Do Natural Biologics Products Work?
Cells are the building blocks of tissue, and tissues are the basic unit of function in the body. Generally, groups of cells make and secrete their own support structures, called “extracellular matrix”. This matrix, or scaffold, does more than just support the cells; it also acts as a relay station for various signaling molecules. Thus, cells receive messages from many sources that become available from the local environment.
Each signal can start a chain of responses that determine what happens to the cell. Through medical technology we can now understand how individual cells respond to signals, interact with their environment, and organize themselves into a healing process. Scaffolds are created utilizing various natural biologics treatments allowing for the tissue to “self-assemble”.
Where Do Natural Biologics Come From?
The field of natural biologics spans decades and comes in many different forms. Often, at Xcell Life we are asked where our biologics come from and how we determine who is a candidate for donation.
The biologics are donated from consenting mothers at the time of delivery. Following all AATB, FDA, and AABB requirements, these products are safely cultivated and meet the highest quality assurance standards. Our lab partners are CLIA certified.
Prescreening – Natural biologic products are obtained from an expectant mother who consents to donate her birth tissues. The collection process is painless and poses absolutely no threat to the mother or her child. Donors are identified through participating OB doctors who have deemed the mothers’ pregnancies as normal and without complication. The mothers provide full consent and undergo comprehensive panel testing to determine eligibility as well as a thorough medical and social screening.
The mother will also undergo a physical exam. To be eligible to donate tissue, mothers must also be free from any transmissible diseases, active malignancies, and sepsis or systemic infections. Donating mothers must also have no known high risk for HIV or Hepatitis.
Processing
Processing – At delivery, tissues are safely collected by trained technicians. They are transported overnight to the processing facility. In addition to the serological testing in the prescreening process, culturing is performed regularly during processing. All products are retested post-processing to ensure the absence of bacterial and fungal pathogens.
During processing, a cry-preservative is introduced to the tissue to protect cell viability. Once packaged into vials, the products are sent to a third body testing facility to ensure sterility.
All products undergo a 14-day quarantine period. After 14 days, the product batches are randomly retested to demonstrate a continued absence of bacterial and fungal pathogens and are non-pyrogenic. A licensed medical director reviews all testing results before the products can be released for clinical use.
Distribution
Delivery – These products are shipped to medical facilities in validated shipping containers containing enough dry ice to maintain the appropriate storage temperature. Included in the shipping container are instructions for use, product stickers, and a tissue utilization report card to be filled out by the clinician. Additionally, the package will contain an application guide as well as a quality assurance form verifying that the CLIA-certified lab checked each order for accuracy before departure.
These biologics are stored always in an 80-degree super-cooled refrigerator. The biologics are removed from the super cold temperature long enough to thaw effectively and then they are administered to the patient by a trained medical professional at Xcell Life according to pre-demined medical protocols.
What Are Exosomes? Why Are They Important?
Exosomes are small-sized vesicles, which are released by virtually every cell type in the body. Medical advancements have discovered a wide range of positive effects exosomes have on our bodies.
Exosomes are now known to be of extreme importance for our health and well-being. They have been shown to be key for cell-to-cell communication and are now known by scientists to be vital in delivering mediators such as cell-signal proteins and other cell excitors and inhibitors. The exosomes released by regenerative cells such as cellular solution & regenerative medicines are cell signaling to begin the healing and repair of cells and tissues. Exosomes can travel all around the body and as they do, some fraction of these exosomes break down, releasing growth factors and other substances that can activate receptors on nearby cells that also help repair and regrow cells and tissue.
Still, most exosomes persist for longer periods. They are found in every bodily fluid and can cross even tightly regulated cell boundaries. The end of their journey typically comes when an exosome is taken up by a recipient cell. Although their lifetime circulating the body may only be short, the influence that they have inside a recipient cell can be very long-lived.