After the treatment of my right knee, Dr. Centeno demonstrated how tight the ACL is now in my right knee. It's nice and snug with no extra play in it and the tears in the meniscus have healed very well. This is exactly the result we were seeking and what allowed me to continue cycling throughout the summer. This summer my business schedule got in the way quite a bit but I still managed to ride the legendary Triple Bypasss and also my annual stop at Copper Mountain to ride in the Courage Classic.
Unfortunately we noticed how loose the ACL was in my left knee. Performing a simple Lachman test indicated a remarkable amount of slippage, so we decided to get a MRI on the left knee to check it out. After doing so, we were able to see that the ACL was definitely intact, but that there were some spots around the meniscus and the medial collateral ligament that were experiencing some wear and tear. I have never suffered any injury to my left knee, but I do experience stiffness in it. Given the success I had with Regenexx SD on my right knee, I decided to have my left knee treated with Regenexx SCP as well. I just had the final injection eight days ago. Right after the injection I experienced quite a bit of pain and discomfort and the range of motion in my left knee was far from 100%. Here's the breakdown of the treatment:
July 5 - Receive prolotherapy injection and micro-damage to the left ACL, MCL and meniscus. This is basically an injection of dextrose directly into the ACL along with some additional micro-damage using needles. This all causes irritation to the areas that are being targeted for treatment because it causes the red blood cells to flood into the area to heal the irritation and damage. Although it's a weird feeling during the injection right into the ACL, this treatment didn't slow me down one bit with regard to cycling.
August 1 - Receive another prolotherapy injection and micro-damage to the left ACL, MCL and meniscus again. Same thing as one month before.
August 28 - Blood draw to use for the stem cell plasma injection.
August 29 - Receive the stem cell plasma injection to the left ACL, MCL and meniscus. This injection was painful and immediately afterward I had a very difficult time putting any weight on my left leg. In fact, I went home and used crutches for two days until the pain subsided enough to begin walking.
Today, a little over one week after the injection, I have nearly 100% range of motion back and I am starting to walk longer distances. I am still having some trouble at night so I put a pillow between my knees to try to level out my left leg a bit. I've already started doing some light spinning on my road bike with it on my trainer. So far, everything is tracking similarly to my experience with my right knee. Now it's just a matter of following the regimen from the doctor and allowing the treatment take effect.
The Regenexx SCP procedure that I had performed on my left knee last week was less than half the cost of the Regenexx SD procedure. I had no injury in the my left knee, just wear and tear from getting older. But I'm hopeful that I will experience the same outcome as my right knee. I look forward to the day where I can run many miles without knee pain.
