Approach of Stem Cells in Treating Sciatic Nerve Injury

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Approach of Stem Cells in Treating Sciatic
Nerve Injury

• Best Umbilical Cord Blood Banking in India

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The Sciatic Nerve

• The sciatic nerve is a large nerve that
  originates from the lower back and passes through
  both the legs to the feet, is important to
  provide the motor and sensory functions to the
  legs. 
• Sciatic nerve injury also known as Sciatica is
  caused due to any kind of pressure such as
  stretching, jerk or cutting of the nerve.

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Symptoms and Complications

• Injury in the sciatic nerve leads to loss of
  muscle power and pain that spreads to the back of
  the leg from the lower back. It generally occurs
  only on one side of the body.
• The pain may range from mild to severe ache,
  sometimes it might feel like a sharp pain which
  can develop progressively or suddenly.

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Sciatica is known to cause some complications
such as

• leg injury
• inability to move the leg
• loss of sensation in the leg
• permanent damage of nerve.

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Risk Factors that Influence Sciatica

• Age Increase in the age of a person may lead to
  a herniated disk or bone spurs.
• Occupation Carrying heavy loads, driving for a
  prolonged time or even a sedentary lifestyle may
  lead to deformation in the spinal cord.
• Obesity Excess weight increases stress on the
  spine, thus leading to spinal cord injury.
• Diabetes Nerve damage may occur due to the high
  sugar level in the blood.

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Common Treatment Options1. Medicines

• Anti-inflammatories Non-steroidal drugs can be
  used to reduce the inflammation of the nerve
• Muscle relaxants To get relief from muscle
  cramp or muscle spasm.
• Antidepressants In case of chronic lower back
  pain

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2. Home Remedies

• Hot and cold compress Combination of hot and
  cold packs can help to relieve pain. The cold
  pack reduces inflammation associated with the
  pain and the heat will increase the flow of blood
  to the area.
• Acupuncture Needles are inserted into the
  specific sites at lower back to create a response
  from the nervous system. The response triggers
  our brain to release natural painkillers,
  increase blood flow and relax the surrounding
  muscles.
• Massage A deep tissue massage will help to
  relax the tensed muscles and reduces the pressure
  on the sciatic nerve.

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3. Physiotherapy

• Strengthening exercises To provide strength in
  the spinal cord for supporting the lower muscles.
• Stretching exercises Helps to stretch the
  muscles of the lower back so that the muscles
  become flexible.
• In addition, physiotherapist also advices to
  improve body posture while sitting or sleeping.

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Treatment by Stem Cell Therapy

• All of the above options will only provide
  instant relief from sciatic pain but it cannot
  cure the disease. Umbilical cord blood stem cells
  are being researched to find its benefits in
  treating sciatic nerve injury.
• In a pre-clinical study conducted by Yilmaz, A.
  et al. (2018) showed that cord blood-derived
  CD34 Stem Cells can protect and prevent
  degeneration of axon and myelin sheath.

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Treatment by Stem Cell Therapy

• For this pre-clinical study, they used 21
  female rats to study the right hind limbs. The
  rats were divided into 3 groups and a full layer
  cut is done on the right sciatic nerve.
• On the first group, only the cut was made.
• On the second group, the cut was covered with
  synthetic vascular graft.
• On the third group, the area of the cut was
  covered with stem cell applied vascular graft.

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Treatment by Stem Cell Therapy

• Post 8 week of operation, they found that there
  were no major differences between the first and
  second group.
• However, in the third group, they found that the
  degeneration of axon and myelin sheet was
  prevented due to the use of CD34 cells. This
  indicates that with further research, umbilical
  cord blood stem cells can help to treat nerve
  injury.

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References

• https//www.cordlifeindia.com/blog/approach-stem-c
  ells-treating-sciatic-nerve-injury/
• https//pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21995439/