Welcome to Living Pain-Free with Dr. Marc Darrow, MD, and Dr. Thomas Grove from the Stem Cell Institute in West Los Angeles. This program is dedicated to providing effective solutions for those enduring pain.
Dr. Darrow is a board-certified medical doctor trained at UCLA, specializing in stem cell and platelet-rich plasma therapies to promote healing. He educates patients about stem cells, PRP, and prolotherapy. Dr. Grove is a regenerative medicine specialist with expertise in ultrasound-guided injections, and he brings extensive experience as an athlete and strength and conditioning coach.
Dr. Grove gives and introduction to regenerative medicine
Hello, and welcome back to Living Pain-Free. I’m Dr. Thomas Grove, a board-certified physician with fellowship training in sports medicine. My passion is helping people regain activity and guiding them toward natural healing.
My approach emphasizes conservative treatment to reduce reliance on pain medications, anti-inflammatories, and steroid injections, while aiming to avoid unnecessary elective orthopedic surgeries.
Regenerative medicine is one of my preferred methods, stimulating the body’s own tissue repair. We concentrate healing cells—such as platelet-rich plasma from blood and stem cells found in blood vessels, fat, and bone marrow—and deliver them precisely to the affected area using image-guided injections.
I utilize musculoskeletal ultrasound as my imaging modality of choice. This technology provides high-definition, dynamic, and radiation-free imaging, which is superior to MRI in many cases. It allows for accurate diagnosis and safe, effective guidance of injections.
Treatment Guidance and Recovery
After treatment, resting the affected area is important to allow healing. For example, avoid running marathons after a knee injection or heavy lifting after a shoulder injection. Some patients see significant improvement after a single treatment, while others may need multiple sessions. Our treatments are highly successful and conservative, with minimal expected side effects such as temporary stiffness or soreness from the healing process.
The Role of Mindset in Healing
Today’s discussion explores the powerful influence of mindset on healing, including the placebo and nocebo effects. These psychobiological responses significantly impact treatment outcomes based on patient expectations and conditioning.
The placebo effect occurs when a patient expects improvement and experiences positive results, which historically happens in about 35% of cases. Conversely, the nocebo effect is when negative expectations lead to worse outcomes.
Understanding and harnessing these effects can enhance treatment success. Avoiding negative language or pessimistic predictions helps prevent the nocebo effect. Fostering a positive mindset and realistic expectations supports better clinical outcomes.
At the Stem Cell Institute, we emphasize thorough diagnosis, image-guided precision, and experienced clinical care to maximize treatment effectiveness. We encourage patients to maintain hope and patience throughout the healing process, as regenerative therapies often require time and multiple treatments to achieve optimal results.
Maintaining a positive outlook, practicing gratitude, and focusing on controllable aspects of health can significantly influence recovery. We also recommend adapting physical activity to support healing, such as exercising unaffected body parts while resting injured areas.
Our goal is to restore your quality of life, promote metabolic health, and keep you active while avoiding the risks associated with surgery and long-term medication use.
Living Pain Free with Marc Darrow, MD, JD and Thomas Grove DO is a regular weekly program that provides information on non-surgical regenerative medicine treatments for joint and muscle pain, highlighting stem cell therapy and platelet-rich plasma (PRP).
The transcript discusses alternative treatments for musculoskeletal pain, emphasizing regenerative medicine over surgical interventions. Dr. Thomas Grove, a board-certified physician in sports medicine, presents options like stem cell therapy, platelet-rich plasma (PRP), and prolotherapy as effective means to heal and rejuvenate damaged areas without the risks associated with surgery. Specifically, he encourages listeners to consider these options for conditions such as arthritis and joint pain, citing a case where a caller named Stephen, suffering from knee arthritis that worsened over time, could potentially benefit from these treatments rather than opting for knee replacement surgery.
Dr. Grove explains that regenerative medicine utilizes the body’s healing cells, often via injections delivered under imaging guidance, to promote the healing of injuries and alleviate pain. He emphasizes the need for comprehensive physical examinations and advanced imaging techniques like musculoskeletal ultrasound rather than solely relying on X-rays or MRIs, which may not accurately depict the source of pain.
During a discussion with a caller, Rachel, about her grandson with a congenital condition known as hemi-vertebrae, Dr. Grove underscores that the presence of a spinal deformity does not necessarily correlate with pain, advocating for a detailed assessment to understand the true cause of symptoms.
He also references a recently published study examining the prevalence of rotator cuff injuries using MRI, revealing that a significant percentage of individuals with such injuries did not report pain. This highlights the importance of evaluating symptoms in conjunction with imaging results, rather than defaulting to surgical options based on radiological findings alone.
Overall, Dr. Grove promotes a conservative approach to treatment, advocating for methods that focus on symptom management and rehabilitation, and he encourages listeners to explore options like regenerative medicine to restore functional integrity while reducing reliance on invasive surgical procedures. He concludes by inviting listeners to seek further information and consultations at the Stem Cell Institute.
