What is regenerative medicine and how can it help with ankle tendonitis?

Ankle tendonitis also spelled tendinitis, is a common issue for both children and adults. It’s often related to an ankle sprain but is just as likely to occur from overuse or repetitive motion in a sport, on the job, or during your favorite exercise routine.

Whatever the cause, ankle tendonitis can cause aching pain with or without movement and keep you resting on the couch rather than enjoying Arizona’s active lifestyle. Dr. Ryan Golub is an expert at diagnosing and treating ankle tendonitis. He often sees patients experiencing this common and notoriously slow to heal problem at his thriving practice in Phoenix.

Previously a team doctor for the Phoenix Suns, Dr. Golub is well-acquainted with what ankle tendonitis can mean for the pro athlete as well as the “ordinary” among us. He’s dedicated to treating foot and ankle conditions that cause you pain and interfere with your mobility. He’s also committed to providing effective therapies that are safe for your overall health and wellbeing.

Dr. Golub heartily endorses regenerative medicine techniques for ankle tendonitis because they can safely accelerate your own natural healing abilities and get you moving pain-free again.

Understanding ankle tendonitis

Any medical term with “itis” at the end refers to inflammation. Arthritis, for example, refers to inflammation of a joint. Ankle tendonitis refers to inflammation of any of the tendons that are part of the ankle joint.

Tendons are a cord of tough collagen tissue that attaches muscle to bone. Damage to a tendon typically causes inflammation and tenderness just outside of the affected joint. Ankle tendonitis may affect the:

• Achilles tendon, which attaches your heel to your calf
• Posterior tibial tendon, which runs along your inner ankle
• Peroneal tendon, which is located at the outer ankle

Your ankle tendons are especially susceptible to tendonitis because of the high demands placed on them in many sports as well as during routine activities of daily living.

What is regenerative medicine and how can it help with ankle tendonitis?

Regenerative medicine is an increasingly popular and widely acclaimed field of medicine that focuses on boosting your body’s own natural and powerful ability to repair or rebuild damaged tissue through cellular regeneration. Bone marrow transplants for leukemia patients are an early example of regenerative medicine.

With advances in medical technology, we’re now able to apply regenerative medicine techniques using amniotic growth factor injections to help accelerate healing for issues such as ankle tendonitis.

The injection material contains cytokines, carbohydrates, collagen, hyaluronic acid, multipotent cells, and proteins called growth factors. These are your body’s building blocks for tissue repair and cellular regeneration that replaces worn or damaged cells.

The injection formula we use at Arizona Foot Health starts with placenta tissue that’s obtained from consenting moms and collected by a specialized team immediately after a live Cesarean birth. The donor facilities from which we obtain our injection materials follow FDA guidelines to carefully extract and preserve the growth factor elements of the donated tissue.

Once injected into the affected region, this high concentration of growth factors starts repairing and rebuilding damaged tendon tissue at the cellular level. This activity also stimulates your body to increase its output of naturally occurring proteins such as collagen for tissue rebuilding and other substances that can decrease pain as they reduce inflammation.

When combined with other traditional treatments for ankle tendonitis, including rest and physical therapy, regenerative medicine therapies such as growth factor injections can speed up the healing process and get you moving pain-free again.

For relief from your discomfort as well as therapy that addresses the cause of your ankle tendonitis where it starts, call Arizona Foot Health today to schedule an appointment.