The Centeno-Schultz Blog

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Neck Surgery and Its Consequences: Adjacent Segment Disease

At the Centeno-Schultz Clinic, we are committed to providing each patient the most advanced nonsurgical treatment, utilizing platelet, cytokine, and stem cell injections, for common orthopedic conditions. The risks associated with surgery are many and have been discussed in previous blogs. These include infection, failure, persistent or elevated pain, change in biomechanics, and adjacent segment disease. … Continued

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Let’s Talk Stem Cells Part 5: Replacing Dying Cells

Every day, billions of cells in the human body die. If the body didn’t have a way to replace those cells, we wouldn’t live very long. Why? Consider these cellular life-spans: Liver cells, for example, only live for about a year and a half. For red blood cells, it’s only about four months. We might … Continued

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Let’s Talk Stem Cells Part 4: Hijacking Other Cells

Today, in our fourth installment of our “Let’s Talk Stem Cells” series, we’re going to talk about how stem cells hijack other cells to make them do the stem cells’ chores. They do this by targeting other cells and firing exosomes at these cells. So what in the world is an exosome? Let’s start there. … Continued

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Stem Cells Part 3: Delegating Repair Tasks To Other Cells

In part 3 of our “Let’s Talk Stem Cells” series, we’re going to talk about how stem cells delegate repair tasks to other cells to help with healing. Based on older research, it was initially believed that stem cells accomplished this only through differentiation (i.e., transforming into and then replacing a damaged cell). However, a … Continued

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Is Your Headache Arising from Your Neck?

At the Centeno-Schultz Clinic, we acknowledge that headache pain can be disabling. It can rob you of your ability to engage in and love life and render you incapable of completing the easiest of tasks. Headaches can arise from a number of stimuli, which include but are not limited to fatigue, hormonal imbalance, sun exposure, … Continued

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Let’s Talk Stem Cells Part 2: Deactivating Bad Cells

Continuing in our “Let’s Talk Stem Cells” series, today we’re covering part 2 in which we’ll explain how your stem cells deactivate bad cells. In particular, we are going to look at macrophage and microglial cells, our body’s clean-up crew. Unfortunately, sometimes these clean-freak cells can go rogue and attack healthy cells and tissues as … Continued

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Let’s Talk Stem Cells Part 1: Recharging Damaged Batteries

Most people really don’t understand how stem cells work or what it is they do exactly. So over the next couple of weeks, we’re going to dedicate some time to just talking stem cells because there’s so much to cover. Each topic also has an accompanying video, so be sure to watch. In “Let’s Talk … Continued

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Should You Have Your Arthritic Knee Injected with Bone Cement?

Along with cartilage degeneration that occurs in arthritis, an MRI of the knee may also show a bone marrow lesion (BML). In recent years, injecting bone cement into these BMLs (a new procedure called a subchondroplasty) in arthritic knees has become a trend. While we’ve seen favorable outcomes reported on this procedure at conferences, in … Continued

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Elective Shoulder Surgery Gone Bad

My last blog discussed the AC (acromioclavicular) joint and why it might be contributing to your neck pain. This time I’m setting my sites on elective shoulder surgery. The AC joint can also undergo surgery if thought to be contributing to the impingement of the rotator cuff. The surgery is termed acromioplasty, and it is … Continued

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Getting a Fusion to Get Off the Opioids? Think Again!

Back pain is an epidemic and perhaps one of the most common reasons opioids and other narcotics are prescribed. You likely either know someone or are someone who has struggled with back pain for years. Depending on your pain severity and back condition, when all else fails, the F word—fusion—is likely to get thrown out … Continued

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