I lay face down on the exam table as the drill penetrated into the bone in my lower back where the posterior pelvic arch joins the spine. The strange sensation caused my breath to quicken, even though I did not experience any real pain, thanks to the numbing medicine injected before the procedure.

After Dr. Adelson aspirated the bone marrow, he suctioned out a small amount of fat around the same area just below my waist—a mini liposuction of no cosmetic consequence.

The friendly assistant took the vials of aspirated bone marrow and fat, then placed them in a machine that extracts the stem cells. A few minutes later, she held up a small jar of reddish-colored fluid and announced, “We extracted ten million stem cells! This is very good. I can tell from the clear fluid in this vial that you’re in really good shape for your age.” She handed the sterile jar to Dr. Adelson who drew up the fluid into a syringe for injection into my arthritic right hip.

Since birth, my asymmetric pelvic structure acted like a ticking time bomb—unbeknownst to me—marking the years until the day I would have arthritis in my right hip. My body’s asymmetry first came to my attention in college when I took a yoga class. Certain yoga poses were more difficult on the right side compared to the left side. Massage therapists and other body workers pointed out that my pelvis was tilted down on the right side, and rotated outward, explaining why my right leg turned out and felt like it was longer than the left leg.

In one of the blogs I posted, there is a picture of me taken when I was four years old, standing next to my father in England. One of the readers, an astute German body worker in Santa Fe, emailed me to say that the photograph clearly revealed the asymmetry by the way the clothes hung on my body. To my amazement, the clues were right there in plain sight, although invisible to the untrained eye. The waistband of the shorts rode lower on the right side, along with the sloping right shoulder. The right foot turned out slightly. During my early years, I had no awareness of having a problem because I had experienced nothing else. As long as I kept physically active, I had no pain in my body.

Being an enthusiastic athlete, I often incurred minor injuries, like torn tendons and ligaments. Ligaments connect bone to bone and help stabilize the joints. Tendons connect muscle to bone. In those days, there was no known treatment for repairing torn ligaments and tendons.

In the early 1990s, a German doctor, Dietrich Klinghardt, taught me how to perform a procedure on myself, called prolotherapy, in order to repair my torn ligaments and tendons. Prolotherapy involves injecting dextrose, a sugar usually derived from corn, into the torn ligament or tendon. The concentrated dextrose causes inflammation and also attracts growth factors to the site of injection. The inflammation stimulates cells called fibroblasts to migrate to the area of irritation and lay down brand new tissue.

Before prolotherapy was used with injured athletes, a torn ligament usually meant the injured athlete would be permanently at a competitive disadvantage; all that could be done was to strengthen the surrounding muscles in order to stabilize the joint.

Many years ago, while I was telemark skiing among deep moguls on a steep slope in Vail, Colorado, I caught an edge, fell and twisted my knee and sprained my thumb. The medial collateral ligament on my right knee was badly torn and painful. Two of the ligaments on my right thumb had been avulsed—torn off the bone. The injuries presented the perfect opportunity to try out the new technique Dr. Klinghardt had taught me.

I ordered a premixed solution of water and dextrose and then added procaine to the mixture, a type of numbing medicine related to the local anesthesia used in the dentist’s office. I took a deep breath, then inserted the needle into the injured ligaments. The injected areas responded immediately with throbbing pain that lasted for a day or two. Within a few days I felt definite signs of healing.

Usually, it takes about four to six injections, a few weeks apart, to get full repair of torn tissue. To my surprise, my “brand new” ligaments involved only one set of injections. The ligaments in my thumb reattached to the bones within a few days and were ultimately stronger than they ever had been before the injury.

While still in the glow from experiencing first hand the wonders of prolotherapy, I heard about something even more awe-inspiring—the potential of stem cells for healing various parts of the body.

Stem cells are undifferentiated cells that have the potential to develop into specialized cells that make various organs or tissue in the body such as skin, muscle, tendons, heart or bones.

There are two classes of stem cells. The first are embryonic stem cells that form after conception in a ball of cells called blastocysts. These potent cells will differentiate into the various organs of the fetus.

The other kind of stem cells are the adult stem cells. These cells float around the body, waiting for a signal to migrate to parts of the body that need repair. As we age, the number of stem cells diminishes.

In the early years after the discovery of the healing capacity of stem cells, heated public discussion prevailed over the use of embryonic stem cells from aborted fetuses for therapeutic use in repairing damaged parts of the body. The controversy subsided when research scientists eventually found a way to induce adult stem cells to form various organs, like heart and nerve tissue, by altering the milieu in the petri dish.

I had the good fortune of directly experiencing a type of stem cell therapy called platelet-rich plasma, commonly referred to as PRP. Platelets are components of the blood whose main function is initiating clotting after a bleed by clumping together. Platelets also contain hundreds of proteins called growth factors that play an important role in healing. Growth factors attract stem cells floating around in the vicinity of the PRP injections.

The PRP is obtained from whole blood drawn from the patient. The platelets are separated in a centrifuge from the other components of the blood then mixed with a solution that is injected by the practitioner into the injured area of the body.

I have my own testimonial to share with you about the amazing benefits of PRP therapy. It’s so amazing, in fact, in might sound like science fiction.

About ten years ago, my right hip began to be painful—the predictable result of having a torqued pelvis that prevented the head of the femur from being squarely positioned in the socket. No matter how much therapeutic yoga and physical therapy I did, the symptoms gradually worsened. X-rays showed that there was only a thin strip of cartilage left in the right hip socket, leaving little protection for the head of the femur to keep from rubbing against the socket.

One by one, my three older sisters each had their right hips replaced. I stood next in line but I was determined to find a way to avoid having a hip replacement. My research at that time revealed that the shafts that the orthopedists inserted into the femur during replacement surgery were made of metal alloys, including nickel, chrome, and cobalt, all of which have caused me severe auto-immune reactions. After a life-changing snowboarding accident in 2007, my leg had to be put together with cadaver bone chips and a stainless steel plate. The plate had to be removed because of the serious symptoms I developed from the nickel in the stainless steel.

By good fortune, Dr. Jonas Skardis contacted me and asked if I would like to try out PRP so that I could experience it first hand. Dr. Skardis is a doctor of Oriental medicine in Santa Fe who has devoted most of his professional career to pain management and has trained a multitude of medical doctors and other health care practitioners how to do this procedure. If you’d like to read about the outstanding work he does, you can visit his website at www.nmpm.com.

For over a year, I went once a month to his clinic to get my platelet-rich plasma injections. With his ultrasound probe, Dr. Skardis showed me on the screen all of the various ligaments that had been torn or frayed, with one ligament almost torn from its bony attachment. After seeing the damage, I understood why I had the sensation that my leg was going to fall off from its attachment to my pelvic bone. The torn ligaments caused the joint to be unstable, which added to the pain. After the fourth injection, I felt a definite drop in the level of pain and the joint felt more stable. I continued the monthly injections for a year, which dramatically improved the state of my hip.

I thought I was finished with the injections but then, on a memorable trip to Cuba, while looking up at the beautiful architecture, I fell into a pothole in the sidewalk and tore all four of the ligaments in my left knee; the ligament on my left thumb tore right off its attachment to the bone. Normally, this might have required surgery to reattach the ligament. But with PRP, the ligament reattached to the bone after the first injection, and the knee ligaments were repaired after two injections. As you can imagine, I am deeply grateful for this method of treatment, using substances made by my own body.

Recently the pain in my hip returned which is understandable, given the angle of the femoral head. A repeat x-ray showed that the degeneration had progressed with even less cartilage for cushioning and with more calcium deposits, called osteophytes, which are laid down where there is inflammation. Reluctantly, I canceled a long-anticipated three-week, twelve-miles-a-day trek with close friends along the Camino de Santiago de Compostela in Spain.

Dr. Skardis told me about his colleague, Dr. Harry Adelson in Park City, Utah. He performs a type of treatment with stem cells that are highly concentrated from the patient’s own fat cells and bone marrow. This technique produces a much higher concentration of stem cells than the platelet-rich plasma, especially useful for aging people who have less stem cells floating around than younger people.

I flew with a friend to Park City, Utah, to get stem cell injections in my right hip, with the specific goal of preventing—or postponing—hip replacement surgery.

Instead of using ultrasound to guide the needle placement in the joint, Dr. Adelson uses fluoroscopy which is a real time x-ray, as opposed to a static picture. As Dr. Adelson inserted the needle into the right hip joint, I looked over and saw a discouraging sight on the fluoroscopy screen—no cartilage left in the joint, just bone on bone. The femoral head looked deformed from rubbing against the socket.

Although the stem cells had no cartilage to act as a template or scaffolding, at least the ligaments would be rejuvenated. With strong, intact ligaments, the joint could be held in place and thereby decrease the pain with movement.

Shortly after the injection, the pain and inflammation became intense. My friend helped me hobble back to the hotel across the parking lot. I welcomed the pain, knowing that a big inflammatory response to the injections would increase the likelihood of a more thorough repair.

The inflammation subsided in about three days. After another few days, I could already feel that my ligaments were strengthening. The pain subsided significantly. I’m back to hiking in the mountains. I don’t know how long this reprieve will last, but I’m doing everything in my power to prevent or postpone a hip replacement.

I follow my own advice and eat an anti-inflammatory diet, take anti-inflammatory supplements like Omega 3 fish oils, bio-available curcumin, boswellia, serrapeptase, and fresh ginger daily. I make sure to do specific exercises for stretching and strengthening the muscles that surround the hip.

If you have painful joints in your body, it might be worth your while to get evaluated by a practitioner with adequate training in PRP or stem cell therapy and skilled in the use of ultrasound to see if you are a good candidate for stem cell treatment. I hope my story will serve as a cautionary tale to avoid waiting too long before getting help.

Not all arthritis pain originates with structural anomalies or overuse syndromes. Many forms of arthritic conditions relate to systemic inflammation caused by immune dysfunction such as reactions to foods. mold, toxic chemicals, and occult infections. In the extreme, the immune dysfunction can result in auto-immune disease such as rheumatoid arthritis. In the next blog post, I will discuss this category of joint pains. Stay tuned.

Here’s to your good health!