Stem Cell Therapy: A New Treatment Option for Injured Pets!

Stem Cell Therapy: A New Treatment Option for Injured Pets!

Stem cell research may still be controversial in human medicine, but in veterinary medicine we already have the option and ease to use stem cells to help cure our pets of a number of ailments! Veterinary researchers have developed a simple procedure to obtain stem cells from your dog or cat and return them back to their bodies for healing injured areas.  There is no worry of the body rejecting foreign material because the stems cells used to treat the animal come from the animal itself!  

Stem cells are such important cells because they are versatile cells.  They are found throughout the body and are able to divide and differentiate into many different specialized cell types.  They are also able to renew themselves to produce even more stem cells.  This means that each stem cell has the potential to become any cell in the body!

Veterinary researchers have found that in cats and dogs, there is a high concentration of stem cells in their fat tissue.  Just 3 tablespoons of fat is enough to obtain a sufficient amount of stem cells for stem cell treatments.  A veterinarian can perform a procedure to obtain these 3 tablespoons of fat in just 12 minutes!  The fat sample can then be sent to a special laboratory that isolates the stem cells and activates them by using laser light and protein rich plasma (PRP).  The stem cells are prepared and sent back in a vial.  A veterinarian can then inject the prepared stem cells back into the animal's body intravenously.  The stems cells then make their way to the injured tissues of the body and begin to repair the tissues.  Researchers were able to make sure the stem cells made it to their destination by tagging them with special markers and viewing them under the microscope on slides containing tissues of the injured sites.  Research has shown that stem cell therapy can repair heart, muscle, and joint tissues.  Stem cells can also help cure ailments such as pancreatitis, hepatopathies, allergies, migraines, and kidney disease in dogs.  The great thing is that it only takes one injection for this treatment to work!  And, for a fee, the lab will store your pet's stem cells so that they will be available for future ailments during his entire life!

Visit us at MAH to find out more about stem cell therapy!
~Your friends at MAH