180: Can Stem Cells Help You?

Transcript of Episode 180: Can Stem Cells Help You?

With Dr. Daniel Pompa, Meredith Dykstra and Dr. Mike Van Thielen

Meredith:
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Cellular Healing TV. I’m your host, Meredith Dykstra, and this is episode number 180. We have our resident cellular healing specialist, Dr. Dan Pompa, on the line. I do not see your typical Utah background because you’re not in Utah. You’re in Florida with our guest expert, Dr. Mike Van Thielen. We have a super-exciting topic for you guys today, one we’ve never really delved into on Cell TV before. We’re going to take a deep dive into stem cells and stem cell therapy.

Before we dig in with Dr. Mike who’s an expert on the subject, let me tell you a little bit about him. Dr. Mike Van Thielen, PhD, holistic nutrition and wellness stem cell expert, author, and keynote motivational speaker has been involved in optimal health practices, anti-aging, and regenerative medicine, sports performance, and nutrition, and supplementation—that’s a lot—for nearly three decades.

Dr. Mike is a licensed physical therapist, a licensed acupuncture physician, and a Doctor of Oriental Medicine with certifications in injection therapy, homeopathy, and homotoxicology, Chinese herbal medicine, and non-invasive cosmetic procedures. He also has a PhD in holistic nutrition from the College of Natural Health. In 2008 he founded a company that certified healthcare professionals in health and wellness programs, sensible weight loss, and natural, noninvasive cosmetic procedures and trained over 1,000 professionals in just a few years.

Dr. Mike sold the business in 2014 and has since dedicated himself to bio-regenerative medicine applications and stem cell therapy and is the president and CEO of Neo Matrix Medical where you guys are today at the clinic reporting live. We’re going to dig into stem cells. I’m very excited to learn, and welcome, Dr. Mike, to Cell TV.

Dr. Mike:
Glad to be here.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, I’m glad to be here, too. The last year I’ve dedicated to learning more about stem cells. That’s why we’ve never had a show. I’m just digging into this whole thing. You know me, Meredith. I remain skeptical, and I have a lot of questions. I have been doing a lot of homework over the last year, even more so with your product in the last few months, knowing I was coming here. I really wanted to do my homework. A lot of our viewers and listeners, they probably don’t even know what we’re talking about, stem cells. They’ve heard the word, but they really don’t know what it is. Start there.

Dr. Mike:
Yeah, there’s a lot of confusion, not only with the listeners and the prospective patients, but even amongst the providers and the healthcare professionals. A stem cell basically is a very unique cell. It separates itself from any other type of cell in the body by having two cardinal properties. Number one, a stem cell can self-replicate. In other words, it can make an exact copy of itself. Number two, it can replicate, or duplicate, or—differentiate is actually the best word—differentiate into any other specialized cell type.

What that means is, for example, the analogy I like to use is that of a joker in a deck of cards. When we have a joker in a deck of cards, we can make it become an ace of spades or a 10 of hearts. As such, a stem cell can become a brain cell, a blood cell, a bone cell, cartilage, a liver cell, muscle, tendon, ligament, and etcetera. It’s those two properties that make a stem cell unique and gives it the endless possibilities in the medical community.

Dr. Pompa:
When we think of stem cells, there’s a lot—at least there was a lot of controversy around stem cells because it was embryonic.

Dr. Mike:
Correct.

Dr. Pompa:
Explain that to the people that things have changed.

Dr. Mike:
Yes. Stem cells come from different sources. Even our politicians, when they were running for the presidential debates and stuff—

Dr. Pompa:
They still don’t get it.

Dr. Mike:
They don’t understand because they dismiss the enormous potential of stem cells in the field of medicine because they wrongly assume that stem cells come from aborted fetal tissue or from embryonic tissue. Of course, there’s a moral and ethical dilemma there. It has been proven that when you use embryonic tissue, for example, in mice, that it causes carcinomas, which is cancer or tumors. Embryonic tissues will never be used in the application for humans. The point is actually moot to talk about ethical, moral issues, or embryonic stem cells because they’re not used, but that’s what people still think, that those stem cells only come from those fetal tissues.

Dr. Pompa:
All right, so tell our listeners and viewers, where does it come from? What’s changed?

Dr. Mike:
We got the embryonic tissue, we have placental tissue, and we have umbilical cord tissue, so those are all human tissues. Then we got, also, stem cells that are derived from the patient themselves. We call it autologous tissues coming from the patient, so they’re deriving either from the adipose tissue, the fat, or the bone marrow. Those are the two common places where you can derive stem cells from.

Dr. Pompa:
In my research there, the bone marrow, some people have had success, but it’s a little more invasive. The fat is less invasive, but it seems not to work as well, at least out of those two. Tell us, what is the success between those two? That’s still very popular. A lot of people are still doing that.

Dr. Mike:
Most providers are doing that.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, exactly. Right.

Dr. Mike:
In order to explain that very well, I’d like to, if you don’t mind, is explain what the ideal source would be of stem cells in order to effectively and consistently regenerate and rebuild damaged connective tissue. The ideal source would have four essential components that basically work in synergy in order to get those results.

I like analogies, so I’m going to use the one of a roofer. I just did -inaudible- We’re in Florida. We get hurricanes, so when a hurricane comes through, we all got to call the roofers. If you have a leak in your roof, we got to call the roofer. The roofer that can be—that shows up can be licensed, experienced. He can be the best roofer in the area, but if that roofer does not bring his tools, are we going to get any good result? No. The roofer needs his tools, right, number one.

Number two, the roofer also needs to have a blueprint or a structural engineering plan. He needs to take measurements, he needs to figure out what materials were used on the roof, and etcetera. Then he probably needs a supervisor, somebody that tells him where to do, what to do it, or it’s basically you calling the roofer, and say, “Hey, you got to come to this address, and this is the problem.” We got to get that roofer to the damaged area.

When it comes to stem cells, we have that similar thing going on. We need four components. We need the stem cells, high quantity and quality. Why? The stem cell tissue -inaudible- Your stem cells are able to fix a damaged connective tissue whether it’s cartilage or rotator cuff tear, but it needs its tools. In the body those tools are called biomolecules. For example, if I had a rotator cuff tear, I need collagen type III, type IV, specific proteins, etcetera. It’s the brick and mortar that we need to fix something. In a body, those are biomolecules. That’s the second component.

The third component is what we call collagen scaffold. It’s your structural engineering plan, your blueprint. In the body, we need that base or that structural base to build upon. That’s your collagen scaffold. Then the last component is what we call growth factors. Growth factors is me calling the roofer and say, “Hey, you got to come to this place. You got to wake up. You got to get out of your bed. You got to bring your tools, and you got to fix this.” That’s your supervisor. That’s whomever activates the dormant stem cells.

If we have all those four components available at the site of injury, we’re going to get great results and consistent results, but there’s only two human tissues that contain all four essential components in high quantity and quality. It’s placental tissue and umbilical cord tissue.

Dr. Pompa:
Got it. In those tissues, you have every component you need for the ultimate healing. Now, what about any risks involved? Back up. What you guys use is use this placenta matrix as you call it as—and you feel it has the same results as—well, the best results out of all of the ones we just mentioned. What about safety?

Dr. Mike:
Let’s back up because you were asking about the -inaudible- Why are we better? Why is this tissue better? Of course, it has those four components, but let’s say—because you said most providers are using adult stem cells.

Dr. Pompa:
That’s what I was going to say. Do the fat and the bone marrow have those four things?

Dr. Mike:
No, they don’t.

Dr. Pompa:
Okay.

Dr. Mike:
Most providers use the adult stem cells from the fat or the bone. What are the disadvantages to that? Number one, if we get those stem cells from the fat or the bone, many times we don’t get enough stem cells. Why is that? The amount of stem cells in our body drastically reduces with age. If you’re 40, 50, or 60 and we get those stem cells, number one, do we get enough of them, and number two, what’s the quality because they are also 40, 50, 60 years old? Many times, we don’t get enough stem cells.

Then we put those stem cells back in at the site of injury, but we only have to wonder if the biomolecules, the collagen scaffold, and the growth factors are present at the site of injury in order to complete that workforce to get optimal results. With the placental tissue or umbilical cord, we don’t have to worry about it because we provide the whole package to the site of injury.

Dr. Pompa:
Using the placenta matrix, what are the percentages of—compared to using your own bone marrow stem cells or the fat stem cells? Percentage-wise, how much better?

Dr. Mike:
To me, it’s hard, but I would say 200%, 300%. What I’m saying is if you’re in shape, and you’re a young athlete, and you get some kind of a meniscus tear, and you do the adult stem cells, I think you’re still going to get great results. Why? Your stem cells are young. Your stem cells are still plenty, and you probably are—if you’re a healthy person, healthy lifestyle, all those components may be available at the site of injury.

Most of our patients are not that person. Most of our patients are 60, 55, 70, osteoarthritis of the knee. They want to avoid surgery, but they’re overweight. There’s a reason why they have osteoarthritis of the knee. It’s very unlikely that within that patient profile, we have those other components available. What we have seen with the application of adult stem cells is very inconsistent results. Some people get great results; other people get far less results.

There’s other disadvantages. You have to undergo that surgery to harvest them. Therefore there’s an additional risk. There’s additional liability, and the cost is much higher, too, because we have that extra surgery.

Dr. Pompa:
When I was looking into this, I started looking at safety factors. Are there chances of cancer? Are there chances of autoimmune? Are there chances of contamination? Where are you getting it from, what placentas? Those were all my questions, so I’m sure they have those.

Dr. Mike:
All right, excellent questions. Our specific placental tissue is FDA-registered and FDA-cleared, so obviously the FDA did its job there. Our placentas come from healthy deliveries of C-section babies. Now, the American Tissue Bank has a hand in how that placenta is taken, and then minimally manipulated, and goes to the manufacturer, and eventually to the end user. It’s all regulated, and the FDA has so, too. For example, all those women are screened for all the possible communicable diseases and much more, but only 1% of those placentas is actually used. That’s how strict those things are.

Now, if we have a placenta, the inner part of the placenta is what we call the universal to all humans, so there’s no possible allergic reactions. There’s no blood typing necessary. Therefore, what we have seen with these types of products that there are no known adverse reactions, nothing.

Dr. Pompa:
When I read that—of course, I went outside your website, and I started looking, and it verified what you’re saying. There’s tissues in the placenta. They’re epithelial cells that aren’t mom, aren’t baby. Is that why they’re a safer tissue to use?

Dr. Mike:
Exactly. It’s universal. What apparently is if you have a placenta, it’s the outer rind which has the specific information between the mother and the baby, but once that placenta is harvested, it’s what they call, according to the FDA, minimally manipulated. What we believe is happening is with the gamma camera, they excise that outer 10% of the placenta, which is specific to mother and baby, so we’re only left with the 90% of the inside of the placenta, which is universal to all humans. That’s why it’s 100% safe and non-immunogenic.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, Meredith, you have a question.

Meredith:
It’s a quick question, too. Why is it from C-section births, the placenta, and not from natural births?

Dr. Mike:
They are so stringent on every single detail that if it would be going through the regular birth canal, there’s a lot more possible contamination by going through the vagina versus the C-section.

Dr. Pompa:
Interesting. That’s probably an FDA—it’s a contamination regulation.

Dr. Mike:
It’s regulation -inaudible- yes.

Dr. Pompa:
Oh, wow. That was a great question, Meredith, because I was actually thinking it. I got caught up in another question. She’s always thinking. I have so many questions that I know that people have. You know what I’m saying? It’s obviously more invasive to go into your own tissues whether you’re fat extracting, bone marrow extracting. What does this process look like? You’re just taking these tissues. You’re not harvesting it from me. Obviously it sounds a little easier, but what does the process look like?

Dr. Mike:
The process is very simple. We believe, for one, we have a superior product, and we don’t have to do the surgery, etcetera, but number two, we also believe we have a superior procedure. We’re not the only ones who can, as providers, buy this tissue. Most providers actually blindly inject the tissue in, for example, a knee joint and then hope for the best results. What we do is we use a MSK ultrasound, which stands for musculoskeletal ultrasound. Ultrasound, we all know it, looking at the babies, their heart, valves, etcetera. It gives us live, 3-D imaging of what’s going on.

The first step, doctor, is that we basically do a diagnostic ultrasound. People come in for their shoulder; we’re going to look at the shoulder in 3-D. We can have the patient move the shoulder, see if the tendons move within the—if there’s no impingement, and etcetera, and etcetera. It’s a much better diagnostic tool than an x-ray or an MRI. We get that imaging first. Then we generate the report just like you would get from an MRI or an x-ray. In 24 or 48 hours we have a report.

Then we’ll decide which areas are—need to be injected to injured areas, and then two days later we can do the treatment. We use that same imaging to guide the injection straight to the damaged area. If this is a rotator cuff tear, we can see on the screen the needle coming in. There’s the placental tissue. We even can videotape it. We deposit that placental tissue right in the damaged area, which allows us for much better and faster results because we are able to accurately place the product where it’s needed versus blindly injecting it in a joint.

Dr. Pompa:
That totally makes sense, yeah. I know my viewers are going to ask this. You’ve seen a lot of different cases here. What does this help? What can’t it help? I was asking about nerve damage because I have a friend who has some nerve damage. Speaking to your guys, “Yeah, we’ve seen amazing things.” Just tell our viewers all the things that—knees, shoulders. Go through a list.

Dr. Mike:
That’s it. It’s anything musculoskeletal, anywhere going from back pain, -inaudible- joint issues, hip pain, osteoarthritis of the knee, meniscus tears, [00:16:08] of tendons, elbow tears, muscle sprains, strains, scar tissue because stem cells also eat way dead tissue, scar tissue, anything soft tissue related, inflammation, Achilles tendonitis, you name it, and even osteoarthritis of the knee.

Dr. Pompa:
Have you ever had people with severe migraines, and you did scans, and—yeah. What are some of the other odd things that you would think the stem cell may not help that actually help?

Dr. Mike:
Stem cells can do a lot more than what I’m mentioning in musculoskeletal issues, but in America we are restricted to what we can and cannot do. There’s many American doctors that take their business outside of the US and actually are very successful—and I know—treating Parkinson’s, MS, Alzheimer, and heart disease. It’s happening right now. If I have any of those diseases -inaudible- family, I know exactly where to send them, but legally we can’t do it in this country.

To get back on the topic, we had somebody with knee pain but also drop foot. She had knee surgery, and as we many times can see, we have a knee or hip surgery these days, drop foot is a common side effect, so knee surgery, drop foot. We actually also inject the placental tissue at the fibular head where the peroneal nerve runs, and we actually get some motion in the big toe and some motion in that ankle while before, that patient doesn’t have any motion. Yes, we can fix the nerves with these stem cells as well as muscles, tendons, ligaments, getting great results.

Dr. Pompa:
Show them this. I don’t know. Do you know this particular case?

Dr. Mike:
Yeah.

Dr. Pompa:
Okay.

Dr. Mike:
I know this case.

Dr. Pompa:
Okay. You know this case. Meredith, tell me when I can—how’s that?

Meredith:
Yep.

Dr. Pompa:
You can use the pen to point at things, perhaps just—

Dr. Mike:
Me?

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. Go around and just point. Just grab a pen.

Dr. Mike:
Do you have a pen?

Dr. Pompa:
Do you have a pointer? You can use your finger, I guess.

Meredith:
If we have our listeners, too, if you can describe what you’re pointing at.

Dr. Mike:
Exactly. What we see here is we see a knee, and these white bones here is the cortical reflection. In other words, that’s bone. In between those two bones is a meniscus. That’s the medial meniscus.

Dr. Pompa:
You’re looking at the pre before treatment.

Dr. Mike:
Yeah, this is before treatment. This is the bone. This is the medial meniscus, and here is the medial collateral ligament. Now, in normal circumstances, tissue is just like this white, condensed area. When we look at the meniscus here, do you these black areas, black, black, black, all those little holes? That means it’s torn up. Those are all tears. Just like in the medial collateral ligament, all these black areas, these deep, black lines, it’s all torn up.

This guy is one of my best friends who was playing Frisbee on the beach two years ago, and obviously—I guess he was jumping for that Frisbee and tore his MCL and his medial meniscus, so we injected—again, needle goes into each and every one of those tears, and we fill that with the placental tissue matrix. On your post picture, 81 days after the treatment, look at—first, let’s look at the medial meniscus, how perfectly those dark holes have been filled in.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, it’s unbelievable.

Dr. Mike:
This looks like a totally new 20-year-old meniscus. Even the bone, over here you can see that it’s kind of not even, but even the bone aligned itself and got a lot more better looking. Then if we’re looking at the MCL, here we got all the dark areas and all the tears, and here we see again that it all fills in. That’s what placental tissues do. It regenerates. It rebuilds damaged tissue.

Symptomatically, this patient, after a few days already, could bend his knee again. We went to Columbia. We went for a hike. He thought he wasn’t going to make it, especially going downhill. He never experienced any pain. Our patients get great results subjectively, but we also—usually three, four months after the treatment, we do another diagnostic ultrasound to objectively show on how this placental tissue matrix, when put in the accurate places of damage, very effectively and consistently can cause its repairs without any surgery.

Dr. Pompa:
That’s amazing. One of the things that people probably don’t understand is it’s not like you’re putting the stem cell in there, and that’s growing into tissue. You’re stimulating the body to actually heal the stem cells that are there. My stem cells that are there, you stimulate that through this matrix to actually start to grow new tissue.

Dr. Mike:
Correct, and provide all the tools that it needs.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, so you’re growing your own tissue. It’s not like you have foreign tissue in you. I know the questions I’ve got. It’s like, “I don’t want to grow someone else’s cells in my body.” No, no, no. It’s you. That’s just stimulating the healing that your body was not able to do, and it starts to heal.

Dr. Mike:
Correct.

Dr. Pompa:
That’s really cool.

Dr. Mike:
That’s correct.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, no doubt about it. Meredith, I know you have some other questions.

Meredith:
Oh, so many. Just what came to mind when we were just looking at those photos, how long are those results typically expected to last? Is that permanent?

Dr. Mike:
It’s pretty much permanent, but we got to look at something. Let’s say a 50-year-old comes in and his left knee’s totally worn out due to his job, due to repetitive motions, his hips are not aligned, whatever the cause may be. It took 50 years to get to that stage. Now, we inject and rebuild that cartilage so it’s like turning back time, but from the time the patient’s done, it starts ticking again because he’s going to play football again, he’s going to walk again.

It’s not going to be lasting forever, but what we’re doing is we take something old, we replace it, and rebuild it, and now time starts ticking again. It’s very individual, but we’re just giving you a new knee. We’re just giving you a new meniscus, and then if you would lay still, yes, it would last forever, but you’re going to use it again.

Dr. Pompa:
That’s a great question. What is the recovery time for this?

Dr. Mike:
It’s great because even if we think about sports, this would be a great application not only preventatively because it’s always [micro-autonomous]. We could extend sports people’s career with years if off season we would inject their torn elbows or their knees with these things and make sure that the -inaudible- are healed before the next season.

To get back to your question, no downtime, really. What we tell people is, “Okay.” You walk out of the office. “Take it easy for five to seven days.” Taking easy means you don’t have to lay flat in bed, but if you had your knee done, I don’t want you to do jumping jacks or go hiking six miles. You can go to the job. You got to do your -inaudible- You can go to work, and you don’t have to stay home from work.

Dr. Pompa:
That’s amazing.

Dr. Mike:
Just want to take it easy. I had my shoulder done, what, six weeks ago. I’m a swimmer. I swim a lot, and of course, swimmer shoulder, tendonitis of the—no, tears in the deltoid supraspinatus and subscapularis. I didn’t swim for eight days, and I started swimming again. It feels great. In four weeks I have the National Summer Championships in Minneapolis. I’m going to see if I can go win there.

Dr. Pompa:
Nice! That’s awesome.

Dr. Mike:
All thanks to stem cells. Otherwise I wouldn’t be in competition right now.

Dr. Pompa:
That’s right, man. -inaudible-

Dr. Mike:
The downtime, very limited. Take it easy five, seven days. No adverse reactions whatsoever.

Dr. Pompa:
That’s the thing that’s amazing. I really thought that there would be more adverse reactions. I thought there’d be more downside or downtime, all these things. It was a real surprise to me. How long has this been going on, meaning that—the placental matrix. How long have we been doing this?

Dr. Mike:
Placental matrix, I guess, the product that we use -inaudible- has been on the market since 2002, so it’s been available a long time, but again, it wasn’t mainstream. Doctors didn’t know anything about those types of things.

Dr. Pompa:
I can’t believe it’s not more known. That’s why I’m bringing this show because you know how my—chronic pain is a huge problem. People are taking painkillers instead of understanding this is an option.

Dr. Mike:
If you only knew how many scheduled total knee replacements we have prevented.

Dr. Pompa:
The pres and posts—he was showing me all these pres and posts because I was asking about these different things, one after another. I asked this question: I said, “What are the percentages of success?” He said, “100% pre and post difference in tissue.” Now, that doesn’t mean that the person’s symptoms changed because there could be other factors sometimes, but 100% they get tissue regeneration, which I thought was unbelievable.

Dr. Mike:
Yeah. We always see some improvement on the imaging, but it doesn’t mean the patient is happy with the result. I would say 80%, 90% of our patients only need one treatment, and they’re very happy with the results. They’re done. When we have a severe case of osteoarthritis, we already tell the patient, “In your case, because there’s so much damage, and your age, and your health condition, you’ll probably need two treatments.”

Then we do a second treatment usually four or five months after the first one, and then they get great results, too. We really don’t have any unhappy patients, but a small percentage needs that second treatment. We basically know in advance who that is. It’s the ones with the severe osteoarthritis, lots of damage, the ones that really -inaudible-

Dr. Pompa:
They could have a different biomechanical problem, too, that’s driving a lot of the pain from a different perspective -inaudible- pain is the gauge. All right, Meredith, with other questions do you—I think I asked all mine. I don’t know. Maybe not.

Meredith:
I’m sure. More typically come up because this is such an interesting topic. Just a little bit more curious about some other applications, too. I was looking on your website prior to the show, and I know there was a lot of cosmetic applications, so I’m very curious about that. Then you also talk about sexual enhancement procedures on your website, too, so if you could kind of explain those two and how they apply, I think that’d be very interesting.

Dr. Pompa:
I knew she was going to ask that. She always asks that question.

Dr. Mike:
Why not? She’s a woman.

Dr. Pompa:
All right. I want to hear the answer to this, actually.

Dr. Mike:
Actually, I own a company where we traveled around the country doing only basic cosmetic procedures, the regular botox filler, or lasers, chemical peels, and stuff like that. We tried the stem cells on some of our patients for the face, and I have to tell you I didn’t see great results on the cosmetic part. We tried the hair restoration. We didn’t get the results we really wanted, but on the ED, erectile dysfunction, or the male enhancement, we see great results, too.

We know that a lot of offices in the metropolitan areas are using PRP for those same things, platelet-rich plasma, which is a procedure out there that gets great results with it again. What is PRP? We have growth factors, right?

Dr. Pompa:
That’s what it is.

Dr. Mike:
Okay, but we have -inaudible-

Dr. Pompa:
That was one of my questions, too, dang it.

Dr. Mike:
Yes. That’s the difference between PRP and stem cells. People say, “Why would I do stem cells? PRP is cheaper.” They draw your own blood. They spin it so you have your platelets, and your platelets are what? Growth factors, right? The growth factors then stimulate the stem cells that are already in the body, which is great. It’s two of the four components. It may work great; it may not, but we would, with our placental tissue matrix, have these stem cells and the bio-molecules, also. For ED, and enlargement, and those types of things, we get great results. I wouldn’t try to sell you, with our product, a hair restoration treatment or a cosmetic treatment.

Dr. Pompa:
That’s very honest.

Meredith:
Why do you think you don’t get as great results with the cosmetic treatments with the stem cells?

Dr. Mike:
I don’t know. There’s not really any set procedure or protocol. We have a product. We assume that with the growth factors and things, this should work. We just, with the few patients that we did, didn’t get the results that—the patients were kind of happy. I even didn’t see much significant improvements. At that point, I don’t want to market it because we get such great results with what we’re doing, the musculoskeletal injuries, so I don’t want to market something that has less of results, and then people say, “Ah, it didn’t really work.”

Maybe it’s the application. It’s the procedure that needs to be tweaked. Maybe it’s that where do you put it? Do you put it in the epidermis, the dermis? Do you put it in the subcutaneous layer? There’s so many ways we could alter the application of it, but we’re not there yet.

Dr. Pompa:
That’s great.

Meredith:
How do you evaluate someone and how they would possibly need stem cells? If someone comes into your office and, say, perhaps they’re looking for a stem cell therapy for a knee injury, but—do you kind of look at their whole body and assess it? Perhaps they need it in other areas, or perhaps they don’t need it in that area, but they need it somewhere else. How do you do that assessment?

Dr. Mike:
The first thing we like to do is we like to get people educated, so we send them to our website to request our free report. It’s 33 pages, but it explains exactly what we went through on the video today, all the different sources and etcetera. One they’re educated, we answer the questions they may have. Then if they say, “Yes, I’m interested. My shoulder’s hurting,” then we have them come in for the diagnostic musculoskeletal ultrasound.

We gather all the other information they have. They might have x-rays results or regular MRI results. We get, obviously, a medical intake. We gather the information, but then, still, we want to do our own diagnostic ultrasound just because it’s 3-D; it’s live; it’s right there and then. We need to take those images anyways but we’re going to use those for the treatment to guide the needle to the damaged areas.

Dr. Pompa:
Go on. No, no.

Dr. Mike:
Then 48 hours later we have the results. We know where the damage is, and then we can decide—the more damage, the more product we would need. Then we know how much product we need, and then we can tell the patients what the cost would be, and then we schedule them for the treatment.

Dr. Pompa:
What are some of the costs? People are going to ask this. I know the answers, but does insurance cover it?

Dr. Mike:
Insurance doesn’t cover it.

Dr. Pompa:
I knew the answer.

Dr. Mike:
We’re in America. Anything that works—

Dr. Pompa:
I knew the answer. Anything that works, insurance not going to—

Dr. Mike:
Nothing that works.

Dr. Pompa:
Give them a price range.

Dr. Mike:
It used to be a very expensive because of the surgery, the harvesting. Even now, if you would go to Florida, Orlando, Tampa, you go to some of those providers that do the bone marrow or the fat tissue, you’re looking at $7,000, $8,000 up to $20,000. That’s a lot of money. Because we don’t have to do that surgery and the harvesting, our prices are much less. For a soft tissue injuries like rotator cuff tendons like I did, my treatment would have cost $3,400. If you have severe issues with the knee, but there’s—your patellar tendon needs injections; your meniscus needs injections; your ligaments are ruptured. It could run up to $5,000. I would say between $2,500 and $5,000.

Dr. Pompa:
You know what? That’s a deductible on their darn surgery today. People have to understand that. How do they contact you? People will fly in for these treatments. Tell them how to contact you, what their first step is.

Dr. Mike:
The first step is go to our website. It’s www.neomatrixmedical. That’s N-E-O, neo, matrix, M-A-T-R-I-X medical.com. You’ll see easily on the home page request your free report. There’s an 800-number. I’d suggest read the report, write their questions down, then contact us. We can answer their questions. Then the next step would be, okay, let’s see if you qualify now. Then they come over, and we do the diagnostic ultrasound. When people do fly in when they’re not local, we try to schedule it the diagnostic ultrasound, day one, the treatments on day three so they can get it all done, and fly back home that way.

Dr. Pompa:
That’s simple. It is remarkable, honestly. People considering surgeries that are on pain meds, man, to me, it’s a no-brainer. Meredith, back to you.

Meredith:
Love it. Thank you, and in closing, Dr. Mike, if you could share with our viewers three key points that you say are just kind of take-home reminders for us in understanding stem cell therapy, what would you most like our viewers to understand? Three top points.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, why they should get it, why they should get this type, and something -inaudible-

Dr. Mike:
Why you should get it, we are still so ingrained listening to our conventional doctor, and we only think that the options are drugs and surgery. We need to just roll up our mind and look at the other options. They are available today. Stem cells is not a thing of the future. Scientists agree it’s the medicine of the future, but it’s available today, so you need to look into it. Then once you look into it, of course there’s different types and different sources that we discussed, so make sure you do your due diligence. Ask your questions, and go to the right provider, which obviously is us. I would at least—

Dr. Pompa:
I wouldn’t be here otherwise.

Dr. Mike:
I would at least consider that option. That’s number one. Number two, we talked about price because obviously it’s a big objection. If I have a knee replacement done, they say my insurance pays, but they don’t consider many things. There’s probably a co-pay with insurance. Then you have to have weeks, and weeks, and weeks of physical therapies where you have co-pays. You probably can’t go to work for a long time. You probably have to buy a brace or—and you have medicines, and you have co-pays. Guess what?

Dr. Pompa:
It costs.

Dr. Mike:
It adds up to $3,000, $4,000, which would have been the cost of this procedure, no downtime, no side effects. Especially when you not just want to get rid of your pain, but you want to take your life back, and function again, or do the things you like to do, your hobbies, your sports, this is the way to go. It’s a quick fix. No knife, no surgery.

Dr. Pompa:
I would add this: It’s real healing. You could do a lot of those things you mentioned, but you still don’t have tissue there. Whether it’s a knee, a shoulder, you still don’t have tissue there. It may last a year, whatever you did, but it’s not going to last because you still need tissue. This is tissue regeneration.

Dr. Mike:
It’s a good point he brings up because the placental tissue has strong anti-inflammatory properties. Once we do the treatment, in many cases the pain drastically reduces in a few days, which is great for the patient, but it also addresses that cause. Conventional medicine never addresses the cause. The stem cells rebuild the tissue. If you have a knee arthroscopy, you shave away the tissue, which is the opposite of rebuilding the tissue. We treat the symptoms and the cause, and that’s exactly what you’re alluding to.

Dr. Pompa:
All right, Meredith. That’s a good reason.

Meredith:
Awesome. Love it. Thanks for reporting live, Dr. Pompa. I know you’re there for a reason, so I’m excited to hear more about your personal experiences with stem cell therapy. You’ll have to share with us on a future show. Thank you so much, Dr. Mike, for sharing your knowledge on stem cell therapy. I feel like I’ve learned so much. Thanks for joining us and sharing on Cell TV. You guys have a wonderful time in Florida, and thanks again for joining, and thanks for watching, everybody. We’ll talk to you next time. Bye-bye.