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I had 3rd-degree arthritis in my knee that I developed after 4 surgeries due to a football(soccer) injury. 4 years ago I could only walk with crouches due to p

I had 3rd-degree arthritis in my knee that I developed after 4 surgeries due to a football(soccer) injury. 4 years ago I could only walk with crouches due to pain. Last month I competed in 2 half-marathons. I was able to get much much better by doing a lot of PRP (platelet-rich plasma) injections over past years and a single SVF (stromal vascular fraction) injection 1.5 years ago. My MRI shows that cartilage has grown back significantly (not fully, but I no longer have a gaping hole in it).

lsllc 3y ago
Can you elaborate? I assume that for the PRP they take your blood and centrifuge out the PFP and inject it back into the knee joint? Glad you were able to rehab so well!
- swe_dima 3y ago
  Yes, in PRP they take your blood, extract platelet-rich plasma from it and inject it into your joint. With SVF they make you a small liposuction (around 80 ml if I am not mistaken, local anesthesia), then also extract cells from it that are similar in function to stem cells and inject them into your knee. PRP is very noninvasive. SVF is more invasive, mostly the liposuction part, but I'd say it's still walk-in the part if you compare it with something like arthroscopic surgery.
  - mmmwww 3y ago
    How did the half marathons go? Any pain?
    - swe_dima 3y ago
      Managed to finish in the top 10% after 6 months of preparation. There was no pain during them, but once you cool down you feel all the beating you received. I mean, I am still not 100% healthy, I get some swelling after exercise, and I don't think I can compete with anyone doing it seriously, I just can't get the same volume of exercise a healthy person can. Like, I can only run 10-16km every 2 days, because I need to give my knee time to recover, while a healthy person can run it every day. But hell, just some time ago I was looking with jealousy at people running at all.
      - mmmwww 3y ago
        That’s great. No arthritis here but i had surgery in the knee for an ACL/miniscus recently so I feel your pain! I completed my first half a month ago.
yolo3000 3y ago
I read in a previous post of yours that you did 50!! PRP injections. I was also advised to get PRP injections by a doc, he said a lot of top athletes suffer from cartilage damage, and they do these injections to prolong their careers. But then I was held back because it seemed they had a business from doing these PRP shots, I didn't trust them. They were also pretty expensive, around 500 euros/shot, and you needed to do several. But 50? that seems a lot, and a lot of times you had your blood drawn. In the Netherlands where I live, the doc didn't even mention PRPs, he jumped straight to a microfracture surgery. It felt like the guy was looking for someone to practice surgery on, hate these doctors.
- swe_dima 3y ago
  Of those 50 injections around 15 were PRP and the rest were hyaluronic acid injections. I was doing them back in Russia and a PRP injection there would cost around $80. I keep doing hyaluronic acid injections every 3 months just to be safe, whatever I am doing it seems to be working, so I continue doing them. Right now I live in Georgia they cost around $105 here ($90 for the syringe, $15 for the doctor). SVF seemed to have a much stronger effect than PRP, it's hard to quantify, but I would say a single SVF felt close to all the PRPs I did before.
- swe_dima 3y ago
  I was recently talking to a colleague of mine from Canada who needs to get shoulder surgery but there's no end in sight for the waiting. I think it's worth it considering getting a paid surgery in a "2nd world" country, like Kazakhstan, Turkey, Russia (pre-war, feels uneasy going there now) and etc. Things there cost 10 times less and most surgeries, where hospitals don't need very advanced equipment, are probably done on the same level as "1st world" countries.
- orangepurple 3y ago
  When I was 18 I went for a long run with a heavy backpack and developed extreme tendonitis on the sides of my knees. I could barely walk without excruciating pain. After three weeks of this suffering I got one round of PRP injections and was able to walk a week later. I made a full recovery within the month. Insane. There was no way it would have healed so fast without the injections based on the pain trajectory from the prior weeks.
toomuchtodo 3y ago
I have a friend I am advocating for who has degenerative arthritis in their ankles in their early 30s and are on their way to being wheelchair bound. Are there any resources you could recommend that would enable me to improve their outcome? Your comment is very helpful already, I appreciate it.
- swe_dima 3y ago
  Just like in programming, the boring but true answer is "it depends", because every situation is different. A generic advice that I learned is that muscle-strengthening exercises help A LOT. Basically muscles form a protective corset around your knee and reduce the stress on your joints by a lot. Also, arthritis often happens due to low blood flow, so as painful as it may be, you have to keep moving, try not to sit too much. Another generic piece of advice is controlling your weight, this is just simple math, the less you weigh, the less stress your knee receives. What also worked for me was hyaluronic acid injections, when I was in a lot of pain and it was hard to work on my muscles, hyaluronic acid helped to reduce this pain by being a good lubricant. Probably I am going overboard with it now, but I keep having injections every 3 months just to be safe. It can be of different concentration and volume. If you inject something with a smaller % you have to do it multiple times in a row with 5-7 days between, if you inject something with a higher % then a single injection is okay. The PRP / SVF part you already read about. I am also a 31 yo, so while I am young my body is better at regeneration, I don't think elderly people get the same effect from these. I did 3 sessions x 5 PRP injections with 6 months between sessions. The effect is by no means immediate. It's certainly a hard road, but better than a wheelchair.
  - saiya-jin 3y ago
    Yes building supporting/stabilizing muscles can do wonders, but as with everything key is to start way before you actually have problems and pain - that's a phase when body is already struggling and failing to fix things long term and degradation happens. Look at your direct ancestors for clues. Adequate stress on joints from right exercises executed in good form are part of this. Beginners almost never got this right and overdo things, investing into professional help in the beginning is very good idea. Same with weight - when people react to degrading health due to say being obese, one is beyond point of return in many things comprising overall quality of life and health. Like getting your act together after first heart attack, way too late. If in pain, generally don't exercise through it, body is saying something ain't right so rather address it. Try things like swimming which put very little stress on the knees yet can work whole body efficiently. You really want to have all parts of body developed well, otherwise you will be always chasing some degradation like whack-a-mole without ever winning.
treprinum 3y ago
How about BPC-157? Did you think about that one?
- swe_dima 3y ago
  I haven't, I don't think it was even an option for me, it's easier for clinics to get a legal clearance if you inject your own cells.
- vGPU 3y ago
  I’ve tried it and TB-500 personally for persistent tendinitis, can’t say either helped.

lsllc 3y ago

Can you elaborate? I assume that for the PRP they take your blood and centrifuge out the PFP and inject it back into the knee joint? Glad you were able to rehab so well!

swe_dima 3y ago
Yes, in PRP they take your blood, extract platelet-rich plasma from it and inject it into your joint. With SVF they make you a small liposuction (around 80 ml if I am not mistaken, local anesthesia), then also extract cells from it that are similar in function to stem cells and inject them into your knee. PRP is very noninvasive. SVF is more invasive, mostly the liposuction part, but I'd say it's still walk-in the part if you compare it with something like arthroscopic surgery.
- mmmwww 3y ago
  How did the half marathons go? Any pain?
  - swe_dima 3y ago
    Managed to finish in the top 10% after 6 months of preparation. There was no pain during them, but once you cool down you feel all the beating you received. I mean, I am still not 100% healthy, I get some swelling after exercise, and I don't think I can compete with anyone doing it seriously, I just can't get the same volume of exercise a healthy person can. Like, I can only run 10-16km every 2 days, because I need to give my knee time to recover, while a healthy person can run it every day. But hell, just some time ago I was looking with jealousy at people running at all.
    - mmmwww 3y ago
      That’s great. No arthritis here but i had surgery in the knee for an ACL/miniscus recently so I feel your pain! I completed my first half a month ago.

yolo3000 3y ago

I read in a previous post of yours that you did 50!! PRP injections. I was also advised to get PRP injections by a doc, he said a lot of top athletes suffer from cartilage damage, and they do these injections to prolong their careers. But then I was held back because it seemed they had a business from doing these PRP shots, I didn't trust them. They were also pretty expensive, around 500 euros/shot, and you needed to do several. But 50? that seems a lot, and a lot of times you had your blood drawn. In the Netherlands where I live, the doc didn't even mention PRPs, he jumped straight to a microfracture surgery. It felt like the guy was looking for someone to practice surgery on, hate these doctors.

swe_dima 3y ago
Of those 50 injections around 15 were PRP and the rest were hyaluronic acid injections. I was doing them back in Russia and a PRP injection there would cost around $80. I keep doing hyaluronic acid injections every 3 months just to be safe, whatever I am doing it seems to be working, so I continue doing them. Right now I live in Georgia they cost around $105 here ($90 for the syringe, $15 for the doctor). SVF seemed to have a much stronger effect than PRP, it's hard to quantify, but I would say a single SVF felt close to all the PRPs I did before.
swe_dima 3y ago
I was recently talking to a colleague of mine from Canada who needs to get shoulder surgery but there's no end in sight for the waiting. I think it's worth it considering getting a paid surgery in a "2nd world" country, like Kazakhstan, Turkey, Russia (pre-war, feels uneasy going there now) and etc. Things there cost 10 times less and most surgeries, where hospitals don't need very advanced equipment, are probably done on the same level as "1st world" countries.
orangepurple 3y ago
When I was 18 I went for a long run with a heavy backpack and developed extreme tendonitis on the sides of my knees. I could barely walk without excruciating pain. After three weeks of this suffering I got one round of PRP injections and was able to walk a week later. I made a full recovery within the month. Insane. There was no way it would have healed so fast without the injections based on the pain trajectory from the prior weeks.

toomuchtodo 3y ago

I have a friend I am advocating for who has degenerative arthritis in their ankles in their early 30s and are on their way to being wheelchair bound. Are there any resources you could recommend that would enable me to improve their outcome? Your comment is very helpful already, I appreciate it.

swe_dima 3y ago
Just like in programming, the boring but true answer is "it depends", because every situation is different. A generic advice that I learned is that muscle-strengthening exercises help A LOT. Basically muscles form a protective corset around your knee and reduce the stress on your joints by a lot. Also, arthritis often happens due to low blood flow, so as painful as it may be, you have to keep moving, try not to sit too much. Another generic piece of advice is controlling your weight, this is just simple math, the less you weigh, the less stress your knee receives. What also worked for me was hyaluronic acid injections, when I was in a lot of pain and it was hard to work on my muscles, hyaluronic acid helped to reduce this pain by being a good lubricant. Probably I am going overboard with it now, but I keep having injections every 3 months just to be safe. It can be of different concentration and volume. If you inject something with a smaller % you have to do it multiple times in a row with 5-7 days between, if you inject something with a higher % then a single injection is okay. The PRP / SVF part you already read about. I am also a 31 yo, so while I am young my body is better at regeneration, I don't think elderly people get the same effect from these. I did 3 sessions x 5 PRP injections with 6 months between sessions. The effect is by no means immediate. It's certainly a hard road, but better than a wheelchair.
- saiya-jin 3y ago
  Yes building supporting/stabilizing muscles can do wonders, but as with everything key is to start way before you actually have problems and pain - that's a phase when body is already struggling and failing to fix things long term and degradation happens. Look at your direct ancestors for clues. Adequate stress on joints from right exercises executed in good form are part of this. Beginners almost never got this right and overdo things, investing into professional help in the beginning is very good idea. Same with weight - when people react to degrading health due to say being obese, one is beyond point of return in many things comprising overall quality of life and health. Like getting your act together after first heart attack, way too late. If in pain, generally don't exercise through it, body is saying something ain't right so rather address it. Try things like swimming which put very little stress on the knees yet can work whole body efficiently. You really want to have all parts of body developed well, otherwise you will be always chasing some degradation like whack-a-mole without ever winning.

treprinum 3y ago

How about BPC-157? Did you think about that one?

swe_dima 3y ago
I haven't, I don't think it was even an option for me, it's easier for clinics to get a legal clearance if you inject your own cells.
vGPU 3y ago
I’ve tried it and TB-500 personally for persistent tendinitis, can’t say either helped.