A highly active lifestyle can take its toll on our bodies. Constant, repetitive movement can wear away muscle tissue and cause us to lose dexterity and experience pain in certain parts of the body. Joey Varner, a 40 years old patient at CELLAXYS, has experienced this first hand.
“Growing up I played every sport you could play – swimming, soccer, basketball, football – but combat sports took my heart,” Varner said. “I loved wrestling and boxing and kickboxing and jiu jitsu, so from my teenage years through my twenties and thirties I did mixed martial arts and combat sports.”
Combat sports have especially damaging effects to the human body. Many mixed martial artists, wrestlers and the like face the consequences of their sport of choice early on. Tendonitis, arthritis, and other soft tissue rheumatic syndromes are especially common among these types of athletes due to the nature of their sport.
“I had multiple shoulder surgeries and I started having hip problems,” Varner told CELLAXYS. “I went to have both checked out and was diagnosed with needing both shoulder and hip replacement.”
These types of procedures are major operations which may require multiple surgeries throughout the span of one’s life.
“It’s not a fun experience,” Varner said. “I’ve had surgery and it’s something I don’t look forward to doing.”
After being displeased with the results, Varner sought out an alternative to major surgery. He came to the CELLAXYS team with his problems where he sat with Dr. Otten and discussed his options.
“I’ve known Mr. Varner for quite a few years now,” Dr. Otten said. “He initially came to me after surgery for his left shoulder. He was relatively unhappy with his surgical outcomes, he still had pain, stiffness, and an inability to grapple or roll in MMA events which was his main passion.”
Varner says that at that point, combat sports weren’t a possibility for him anymore. His discomfort was so great that he was unable to perform even the most basic exercises such as lifting weights and running.
“Having something that you love to do and that you’re extremely passionate about be removed from your life, it takes a toll,” Varner said. “Not just physically, but psychologically as well.”
Varner’s physical condition continued to deteriorate. Over the course of 2 to 3 years, he had significant weight gain and his morale dropped substantially.
“I was at a low point in my life and I didn’t know what to do,” Varner told CELLAXYS. “I had heard a lot about stem cell therapy and so I did some research in Las Vegas and found CELLAXYS and Dr. Matt Otten.”
Dr. Otten conducted a preliminary screen on Varner and concluded that he would be a great candidate for adipose-derived stem cell therapy.
“Varner came to me with post-surgical pain in his shoulder from arthritis and rotator cuff tendonitis,’ Dr. Otten said. “He also had hip arthritis that he didn’t want to do surgery on.”
“I offered him a procedure where you take adipose tissue and derive stem cells from the adipose tissue,” Dr. Otten said. “You can easily get enough for two major joints in one setting or one procedure.”
Varner decided to follow Dr. Otten’s recommendation and after a short outpatient procedure, was out of the procedure room within 2 hours.
“It usually takes four to six weeks for patients to feel an improvement,” Dr. Otten said. “On the nose, six weeks after we did the procedure for Joey, he sent me a text and said, ‘This is an amazing procedure and my hip feels amazing.’”
“One of the best parts about Joey’s procedure was that we were able to hold off on major surgical interventions on Joey. He’s so young, we wanted to avoid that at all costs.”
Varner told CELLAXYS that since his procedure, he is almost back to 100% range of motion on both his hip and shoulder. Additionally, he says that he is almost completely pain free.
“I’m living the high quality of life that I want to lead and it’s all thanks to Dr. Otten and CELLAXYS.”
