Why Heather Was Excited to Learn About Stem Cell Therapy at Stafford Veterinary Hospital

One of the things about being a pet parent is managing your pet's health — and sometimes it seems as complicated as managing a person's health. Before my 17-year-old cat Leah died in December, she had a variety of health issues that appeared and worsened in the last 5-7 years of her life.

First it was bowel issues, then there also was arthritis in her hips and spine and also kidney issues toward the end.

When Dr. Michael Pride, the medical director at Stafford Veterinary Hospital, explained stem cell therapy to me recently, a little light bulb went off: I wondered if this treatment might have made Leah's final years more comfortable and if it's something I should consider planning for with my two new rescue kitties, Maggie and Lady.

But let me start at the beginning. When a lot of people hear the term stem cell therapy, they think of the controversy surrounding research with embryonic stem cells or maybe the practice of saving umbilical cord stem cells.

This is a little different. Stem cells from a dog's or cat's fat tissues are isolated and then injected in the problem area. There's no worry the body will reject these cells (since they came from the same animal) but the stem cells work to replace the damaged cells with new, healthy ones, as Dr. Pride explained.

According to Stafford Veterinary Hospital's website, stem cell therapy can be used to treat:

• Osteoarthritis
• Ligament injury
• Bone injury
• Spinal cord injury
• Liver disease
• Cardiomyopathies
• Inflammatory diseases of the skin and gut (like allergies or inflammatory bowel disease)

Here's a longer explanation from Medivet Biologics, which provides the technology Stafford Veterinary Hospital uses:

The results vary; not all patients have a major response to stem cell therapy but if they do, the therapy is healing the problem at its source. That's in contrast to a lot of medication prescribed for say, arthritis, that masks pain and inflammation but doesn't address the bone and cartilage loss at the heart of the problem.

In some situations, you may need to repeat the therapy in 18-24 months. For example, stem cell therapy might treat arthritis in one area of a pet but as the animal ages, a different deterioration happens in the same joint or another one.

Stafford Veterinary Hospital has been offering same-day stem cell therapy for about a year and even encourages clients to plan ahead. They can remove the fatty tissue for stem cell therapy when an animal is under anesthesia for spaying or neutering and freeze it for use later in life (when you might want to avoid using anesthesia on an older animal). Similarly, they can remove enough tissue for more than one treatment, so the pet doesn't experience multiple surgeries.

Honestly, my mind was blown when I heard about all this, and I'm thankful that we have a veterinary practice in our area that offers it. In some areas, pet parents have to be referred to a specialist for stem therapy treatment, but Stafford Veterinary Hospital has all the technology on site.

It’s a really neat technology for people who really love their pets. If you'd like to learn more or see if your pet might be a good candidate for stem cell therapy, check out Stafford Veterinary Hospital's website here or call 609-597-7571.