First I'd like to state that this is possibly one of the most irresponsible ideas that many will see posted on a forum and I in no way advocate that anyone even consider what I'm about to propose, so I won't be offended if this thread is locked or deleted.

I'm in a desperate situation that requires medical attention but I simply can't afford it. I've been told that I will have to wait approx 4 years to see a public health surgeon and then I can expect to wait another 6-8 years after that before I can expect to receive any treatment. Previous experience with the public health system has proven to be totally inadequate and of such a low standard that I wouldn't wish that treatment on a dog anyway.

My problem is this.

I have a severe knee injury that has been an ongoing issue for my entire adult life. All my ligaments are completely severed, several tendons are severed, my medial and lateral meniscus have been removed and I have extensive damage to my articular cartilage.

Recently I injured it again, which has chipped a piece of bone off the joint and it's occasionally causing the knee joint to lock in various positions and make a lot of crunching and cracking sounds. That's not really a big deal as that's happened before and over time it wears itself back in and full range of motion is restored.

A large part of the problem since the injury is the fact that my knee completely dislocates, the tib & fib become completely displaced and I can see and feel the top of my tibia (through the skin) sitting about 90 mm from where it should be. Talk about pain, you haven't lived until you've dislocated a knee.

Contrary to the opinions of the public hospital surgeons I can still walk, albeit with considerable pain. I've managed to keep myself on my feet all these years with an intense physio program of my own design and with a prolotherapy technique I devised myself.

My prolotherapy technique is very primitive and any MD would say it's so dangerous that the concept (especially doing myself) is an act of utter lunacy - but hey it works.

My method involves injecting a crude pressed extract of Symphytum officinale (Comfrey) that has been PC sterilised directly into the the joint cavity and into the tendonous structures surrounding the joint. I chose Comfrey because it contains allantoin which is known to be a cellular proliferant and it also is rich in polysaccharides which seemed to be a fair substitute for the dextrose mixtures commonly employed in regular prolotherapy treatments.

This seems work quite well to tighten the surrounding structure of the joint but it doesn't seem to doing much for the wear and tear on the articular cartilage

So if anyone out there hasn't been bored to tears and is still reading my question is this.

Can lipoaspirates be harvested with a common hypodermic needle without the need for a tumescent anesthetic solution ?

If so what would be an appropriate gauge needle for this purpose ?

My understanding is that Lipoaspirates contain adipose derived stem cells (ADSC) and these cells are capable of differentiating into chondrocytes, fibroblasts and synoviocytes. They can also differentiate into many other cell types.

Basically what I'm proposing is DIY prolotherapy.

I hate to say it, and I'm sure you already know, but this is not the kind of place to ask for that kind of advice. Likewise, I would never ever ask a medical student for this kind of advise, only a physician. It would be better to get on a medical website for this kind of advise. Im sorry to read that you're going through all this, but you could endanger yourself further taking advice from a forum like this. Especially considering that no one here can examine you no one who knows your labs Hx ect.

This thread should be locked IMHO, Id hate for more harm to come to you.
Try a medical website where you can email Docs, and specialists.

Lipoaspirates do contain stem cells but in order to utilise them they need to be separated from the inevitable blood and other components and this is ,AFAIK, not something that one can DIY.

I would strongly advise against injecting lipoaspirates into your affected joint space.Do see someone who is more knowledgeable about such matters than both you and me.I am after all a pill-pushing physician rather than an expert on invasive orthopaedically related interventions.

Heres a paper which gives more details on getting the stem cells from the lipoaspirate:



http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih....pmc/articles/PMC2861738/

And with that precious answer from CC we close this topic.


Kind regards,

The Traveler