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The Get Healthy Tampa Bay Podcast
Bringing all things health and wellness to Tampa Bay, FL from your very own family and obesity medicine physician, Dr. Kerry Reller, MD, MS. We will discuss general medical topics, weight management, and local spots and events focusing on health, wellness, and nutrition in an interview and solo-cast format. Published weekly.
The Get Healthy Tampa Bay Podcast
E107: The Power of Regenerative Medicine with Dr. Jordanna Quinn
Welcome to the Get Healthy Tampa Bay Podcast with Dr. Kerry Reller! This week, I’m joined by Dr. Jordanna Quinn, a board-certified physician in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation with specialty training in regenerative medicine, anti-aging medicine, and medical aesthetics. We discuss how regenerative therapies like prolotherapy, platelet-rich plasma (PRP), and stem cells can help harness the body's natural healing potential. Dr. Quinn also shares insights into optimizing health, preventing injury, and the role of lifestyle in long-term wellness. Tune in for actionable steps to improve recovery, reduce pain, and enhance overall well-being!
Dr. Jordanna Quinn, D.O. is a board certified doctor in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and has specialty training in Regenerative medicine, Functional medicine, Anti Aging Medicine and Medical Aesthetics.
Dr. Quinn has extensive experience with athletes of all types, both professional and amateur. She enjoys helping busy CEOs, lawyers, doctors and athletes improve their performance, health, and looks with regenerative care so that they can live up to their full potential, without sacrificing their health. Dr. Quinn is passionate about using regenerative and psychedelic medicine for profound healing in her patients.
Dr. Quinn is the founder and owner of Kore Regenerative Medicine in Golden, Colorado, and of Active Voyage Retreats. Kore Regenerative Medicine stands as a beacon of advanced and specialized medical care, deeply committed to the wellbeing of its patients. Kore is built on the philosophy that every individual possesses an innate ability for healing and transformation. Active Voyage Retreats takes this philosophy and enables clients to spend 4-7 days working on their healing in a loving, holistic, and nurturing environment.
00:00 Introduction
00:29 Welcome Dr. Jordanna Quinn
01:37 Dr. Quinn’s Journey into Regenerative Medicine
05:06 What is Regenerative Medicine?
10:21 The Science Behind PRP, Stem Cells, and Prolotherapy
17:18 Common Conditions Treated with Regenerative Medicine
23:26 The Connection Between Metabolic Health and Healing
27:06 The Importance of Lifestyle in Recovery
31:48 The Role of Hormones in Orthopedic Health
38:38 Where to Find Dr. Quinn & Final Thoughts
Connect with Dr. Jordanna Quinn:
Website: www.koremedicine.com (Core Regenerative Medicine)
Instagram: @koremedicine
Facebook: @koremedicine
Connect with Dr. Reller
Podcast website: https://gethealthytbpodcast.buzzsprou...
My linktree: linktr.ee/kerryrellermd
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kerryrellermd/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ClearwaterFamilyMedicine
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/clearwaterfamilymedicine/
Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@kerryrellermd
Clearwater Family Medicine and Allergy website: https://sites.google.com/view/clearwa...
Podcast: https://gethealthytbpodcast.buzzsprou...
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All right. Hi, everybody. Welcome back to the Get Healthy Tampa Bay podcast. I'm your host. Dr. Kerry Reller. Today we have Dr. Jordanna Quinn joining us all the way from Denver, where it might be as cold as it is here today when we're recording. So Dr. Quinn is a board certified physician in physical medicine and rehabilitation with specialty training and regenerative medicine, anti aging medicine, and a medical assistant. Aesthetics. She's the founder of Core Regenerative Medicine, and she helps patients unlock their innate healing potential. She's passionate about guiding individuals, whether athletes, professionals, or those facing chronic health challenges toward achieving optimal wellness and performance. So welcome to the podcast, Dr. Quinn. I hope I did your introduction a little bit of you know, a service instead of a disservice, but welcome.
Jordanna:definitely a service. Thank you.
Kerry:Yeah, so I'm excited to have you on today, finally connecting after all the illnesses and hurricanes. But here we are. So how, I guess, tell us a little bit about how you got into what you're doing now. How did you go from PM& R? Are you still using PM& R, which is physical medicine and rehab? And tell us, our listeners, a little bit about that.
Jordanna:sure. I will try to keep it a medium length story because it's always kind of, you know, roundabout, but I've always been so I've always been an athlete. I grew up as a gymnast and then a diver in college and sports are important to me and just maintaining. So I think innately with sports for most people as being athletes an innate sense of health comes with that. And innate kind of understanding of at least being a competitive athlete. So, you know, an innate understanding of what it takes to work hard and train for sports and also somewhat of a dietary component with that in terms of, like, how food affects you and how you feel when you eat different foods. And so, so that's kind of like as a, as a young person and growing up, I've always been an athlete and that's been important to me. And then in medicine, I've also always been more holistically medicine minded. So even in medical school and very like traditional, I'm an osteopath, but it's still just very traditional, like Western medicine approach to health. We, at least in my school would have to do presentations with every kind of organ system we learn. So endocrinology or pulmonology or cardiology, we would all have to do presentations and I always took it like. holistic or alternative medicine approach to my presentations. It was always like this non standard of care that I would kind of teach my class. So it's just always been me. Like I've known there's something more to health than just science, if that makes sense, or just like these like facts that we look for as physicians. And when I was applying to medical school, I'd I mean, even again, I guess before medical school, even I just didn't love, you know, I saw so many doctors. I just didn't think we're healers. And so I've kind of looked for alternative modalities. So, so, so it's always been me is what I'm saying. So, even though I went to traditional medical school very early in my career, I branched out into the alternative medicine world because to me, it's what makes sense. And so I practiced traditional PM& R in a chronic pain and MSK practice for two years. And I was in a, I hated that job. My boss like literally stole from my 401k and he was a criminal and it was very weird. But it was kind of like all of these things that at least in, in physical medicine and rehab in my training that we had heard about, like just these weird pain practices, but. Backing up for a hot second, the reason I went to PM& R, one of the reasons this was an important special to me, because physical medicine rehab is the study of anything that makes you not move normally. So from head injury, to spinal cord injury, to sports injuries, to kind of non operative orthopedics, rheumatology, I mean we study. Body movement. And so as an athlete, that's what made sense to me. I really wanted to help people get physically back to achieve optimal health. And so even in residency, I had learned about regenerative medicine, which is for our discussion purposes. The use of your body's own cells enhancing the body's natural healing ability with its own cells. Thank you. Information. And so there's a few different types of regenerative medicine that we can get into, but the types that I use are something called prolotherapy, platelet rich plasma, or stem cells. And I had learned about it in, in PM& R because it does make sense for our specialty. We do a ton of joint and spine injections, but in a traditional, like, medical residency, I went to the University of Virginia. You know, we don't actually do it. You can't practice alternative medicine in a residency program, even though they were trying to bring in platelet rich plasma at the time. And so when I was in my first job, I would see some professional athletes and just competitive athletes. And you can't do even like a steroid injection to their shoulder before a competition because steroids are Not in their, you know, they're not allowed in the World Anti Doping Association guidelines.
Kerry:Yeah.
Jordanna:So we would send them, so I would, I, like, you know, did a Google search and would send them to a local doc who did platelet rich plasma injections. and, and so this happened, you know, multiple times and the kind of the sticking point for me was there was a, a patient I had who had something called complex regional pain syndrome, which is like, in my specialty opinion, the worst disease you can have. It's terrible. And they were looking for alternative treatments to their care because we don't really have a lot. We don't really have anything that cures it, but we don't have any good treatments other than obviously like pain medications leading to opiate pain medications and benzodiazepines and things like Xanax and things like that. And you know, not everyone wants to be on those types of medicines lifelong. And so she was looking for something alternative. And so when I did a research, I found a neurosurgeon group in town and kind of called them. And they said, we'll try some IV magnesium. And I was like, what? And so, and I found someone who did IV magnesium and it was the same person who I had been, referring a lot of my PRP injections to. And I was like, what does this doctor do? Like, this sounds amazing. Like this sounds like what I believe in, like what I've always believed in since. You know, before medical school, during medical school, like, I want to heal people naturally, as naturally as possible. I'm not anti medications by any means, I just think we over prescribe medications or we're so quick to prescribe medications in, in this country as opposed to working, working with the patient's physiology and working with the person's health, like, true health, and then you can give medications or then you can do IVs or then do other things. So anyhow. I looked at this doctor who was doing all these cool things and I wrote him a letter and told him to hire me and kind of the long story short is that he did. Over time, he mentored me for a year. Like I worked with him kind of like a med student or a resident or something for a year. And then he eventually hired me on and he was an anti aging or is, was an anti aging medicine doc. And I had never heard about this in my life. And what anti aging medicine physician is, or at least in the old school is basically it's functional medicine. So really focusing on diet and lifestyle and trying to find the root cause of your disease. But then anti aging, so it's functional medicine, like what, as opposed to just, oh, you have a symptom, let me treat a symptom with a medication. It's like, is there a common theme as to why you have five different symptoms? And then the anti aging part is really like, okay, if you have a disease, that's what we do. We optimize your health. And you can have a disease or not, but then how can you actually reverse aging and there is a science of reversing aging, which is fascinating and amazing. It's still very new in medicine and not that you can completely reverse aging. We all still die at some point, but it is a new area of medicine. I mean, I've been doing this for 15 years to be clear and seen. You know, some of the changes, but I just think it's so cool. I mean, to be able to, I mean, at minimum, just optimize your health. Like how can I live my life and what can I do in my day in and day out to perform optimally, whether that's mentally, physically, spiritually, whatever that is, you know, because it just feels good to feel good and it, but it takes effort. And so it's a type of medicine where you can't really be a passive participant in your health. You have to like take action. So that's kind of my story in the long, the long and the short of it, the long of it really
Kerry:So let me, well, it's very amazing story and it got you to where you wanted to be. And it looks like you were kind of preparing for this, like pretty much your whole life anyway. So that's pretty awesome. So to be a little more clear or to help our listeners, what is the difference or is there one between anti aging medicine and regenerative medicine?
Jordanna:so I think a regenerative medicine is using your body's natural healing abilities to heal itself. So there are some regenerative medicine doctors who will use, like, the umbrella term of regenerative medicine for anti aging purposes and for orthopedics and things like that. When I think of regenerative medicine, because the early days of regenerative medicine, it was It's pretty strictly for orthopedic. So it's basically non operative orthopedic. So if you have a meniscus tear in your knee or rotator cuff tear or arthritis, I'm doing regenerative medicine procedures into those joints or into your spine to help regrow and or heal injured tissue. And so that's, I guess, for purposes of our conversation, what I consider regenerative medicine. There are other branches of medicine, like internal medicine branches, cardiology and pulmonology and neurology that will also do regenerative medicine. I mean, I don't do any of those injections because it's not in my scope of practice, but you can use PRP and stem cells. I mean, even an OBGYN, I have a friend who I just taught how to do, how to make PRP. She's an OBGYN and she just emailed me, I mean, within this week. week or last week that she did her first PRP injections into someone's ovaries to stimulate egg production, which is so cool. I mean, I just think using your body's own, like our bodies are imperfectly perfect, right? Like our creators made us a certain way. And yes, we age. And yes, sometimes we you know, get injured and we don't heal and there's reasons, but there are physiologic reasons that we don't. And if we can harness our beautiful physiology and enhance it or concentrate it or whatever and just use it, I mean, there's no side effects, there's no, you know, rejection, there's no allergic responses. It's, it's amazing. It's truly like awesome in the sense, in the word of like awesomeness and, and to me.
Kerry:Yeah. So you mentioned a few types. And maybe you could clarify and go over them and why is it not rejected, right? So tell us the, you know, the reasons and what it is kind
Jordanna:Yeah. So I mean, so the three types of regenerative medicine that are used in the orthopedic sense would be something called prolotherapy, which is actually exogenous. So it's not something you produce in your body, but we'll talk about it. And then something called platelet rich plasma, which is taking your body's platelets. So we take your blood, we centrifuge it, and then inject them back into your body. And the third would be stem cells, where. They are harvested from either your fat or your bone marrow and you can actually buy umbilical cells and we'll talk about that down the line because I'm very opinionated on that. But usually it's using your body's own natural healing ability, concentrating a solution and injecting it in. Either, any one of those three, essentially what we are doing is stimulating the body's healing slash injury cascade. So when you injure yourself, your body, you know, so you can break your arm, you can, you know, you cut your skin, whatever sort of injury it is, even just like a tendinitis, your body sends blood there, right, to heal it. everything in your blood. Your blood has everything we need to heal. And as we get older, we actually have less platelets around. We have less stem cells around. So that is part of the reason why we don't heal as well as we used to when we were younger. We just have less cells around to do so. And so if you think of your blood vessels as highways to healing, the other reason we don't heal as well is because there's just some areas in your body, like joints and tendons and ligaments, they tend to not have good highways there, right? They have like dirt roads or gravel roads, so you just can't get there, your blood in the cells can't get there to heal as easily. And so the combination of not having a good blood supply or, you know, ample blood supply to an area and poor cell production leads to poor healing. little to no healing. So in any area of regenerative medicine, we're stimulating this pro inflammatory or healing cascade where your body sends blood, sends these healing cells with platelets and stem cells and all of these things that, that stimulates this whole like paracrine cell to cell response in your body where it's cell signaling other cells to help heal the area and within your body. And so prolotherapy and PRP and stem cells are all doing it at different points in the healing cascade. So prolotherapy, we're actually taking a sugar solution. Your body hates sugar. There are very few organs in your body that actually want sugar. And especially your joints and your ligaments. So we take a sugar solution, so this is the part that's not natural in your body. And inject it into areas of injury. So prolotherapy has been around the longest. It's, and what that does is the, because it's like a noxious substance, your body sends this healing cascade to help get rid of the sugar, and therefore there's these, there's cells that help reproduce collagen and like strengthen the tissue and try to heal the tissue, so your body sees sugar as something it needs to heal. Additionally, when you're injecting it, you are putting a needle into that area. So we do know in medicine that even a needle without injecting anything will also stimulate healing. So the combination of the two gives you a more robust response. Your body sends blood and healing factors and tries to heal the area and it lays down more collagen. You know, we know this like in the aesthetics world. A lot of people will do like microneedling or those like rollers on their face or acid peels and it's kind of the same thing. It's a noxious substance that's then stimulating the body to send these healing factors and reproduce collagen. And so when you do it on a small level, we're not like breaking your arm, but when you do it like you can do a micro fracture or something and when you're doing it on a small level, you're actually laying down more collagen and healing something. So Prolotherapy starts at the very top of the cascade, where you're just stimulating your whole system to non specifically come heal the area. PRP is short for platelet rich plasma. That is where we take your blood, and in your blood you have platelets, and platelets are part of the healing cascade. So imagine you cut your skin, right? Well, in your skin or in your blood, we have something called platelets, and they will first serve to clot your blood so you don't just bleed forever and ever. And then they have a more robust, you know, signal, like sending signals to send growth factors and cytokines and things to come heal your skin, right? So we're just talking about like you're cutting your skin. Well in your skin, and so you have stem cells at different stages of growth in your body. So if you think of stem cells as humans, right? You have stem cells that are newborn babies and they're floating around in your blood and they have no idea what they're going to become and they're waiting for like someone to tell them and then you have stem cells that are like maybe teenagers or early 20s that are in each different system in your body. So you have stem cells in your skin that already know they're going to become skin but they just haven't been given the opportunity yet. So when you cut your skin, In that blood, part of that, like, cascade is like, Hey, it's time to come repair this area and do what you knew you were going to become, right? And so there's stem cells kind of in multi stages of development. So you cut your skin, you have platelets, platelets kind of start that whole cascade of healing, telling the stem cells that are in the area that they're, time for them to become skin, calling stem cells within your blood to come become skin. And then, you know, you form a scab and then even, you know, over time that scab falls off and you have a scar and over the course of about three to six months, even that scar looks better and better. Like it's healing, right? So that whole process is this beautiful process that is done naturally in your body. We are stimulating that process in your joints or your ligaments or your tendons, or even your bones sometimes when you have a broken bone and as you know, just from your own, like what, again, if you're using the, like, cut your skin, it takes time. Like you, depending on how bad you cut your skin, how deep you cut your skin, you don't heal in a day or two. It's not an overnight fix. It's not even a fix in a week. It usually people feel better. Really start to notice around the six week point that they feel better. And it's still up to like six months where people continue to have improvement because we are stimulating that process. And then the body just does it. So that's platelets and then stem cells are just even lower like I view platelets as kind of like the general contractors of your blood where they're really relying on telling other things inside of your system what to do and stem cells I call like the worker bees right so you can just go pick up a bunch of workers and stick them where they need to go. So you're getting a much more robust response with stem cells from either your fat or your bone marrow. Because you're, you're getting billions of stem cells, as opposed to when you use platelets, they can only encourage stem cells to come to the area. You're not generally mobilizing billions of stem cells. So when you get your stem cells and you put them in, the healing responses is much more robust. So that's kind of the difference between those 3.
Kerry:Yeah, that's a really good overview of all of them. But like you said, it's all nailing down to the point of you're taking an area that's being injured or injured on purpose, maybe, and then healing it with its body's own
Jordanna:Correct. And so there is just because I mentioned it there, you can buy cells and this is where I'm very biased anti and so take it with a grain of salt. But about, I don't even know how long ago now, 8, 9 years ago, umbilical cells came on the market.
Kerry:Mm hmm.
Jordanna:And so you can buy umbilical cells and or exosomes and I'm just going to put them in the same kind of bucket and inject them into areas and they do heal. They do produce a response, but I would put them kind of in that same category as PRP as even though you're putting stem cells or exosomes into the area. How they're working is by, like, sig this cascade signaling. You're not getting billions and billions of cells like you are when you do a stem cell, like, autologous stem cell procedure with your own cells. And there is an argument in the community, like, Oh, baby stem cells are better, so I want to use baby stem cells. Older stem cells aren't working. I fully disagree. There is nobody that I know of doing studies comparing umbilical cells to, like, adipose or something like that, but I've been in this field long enough and I have used both, and I just haven't seen the same response, even in, like, 80 year olds that I'm getting their own stem cells versus using umbilical cells, and my theory Is just because you have more cells, right? So yes, our stem cells don't work as well as we get older, but I think it's more of a concentration issue than an actual function issue, right? So we don't heal as well as we get older, but I think it's more because we don't have as many stem cells around as opposed to the stem cells we have aren't functioning because they still work. And based on my knowledge of genetics, I actually got a master's and studied stem cells before I went to medical school. You know, when you still take the same cell, no matter what the age, like, it's still a baby cell because it hasn't been stimulated to do, like, it's, it's, it's still that same age as it was years ago. So it's, it's not the actual cell that isn't as robust, it's just the concentration. In umbilical cells, you get way less concentration, plus they've been frozen and thawed and frozen and thawed, so by the time you get them, no matter what, Someone sells you, they're not alive, they have the ability to send, like, that whole cascade of signaling, and so there's a time to use those cells, like, in my opinion, I mean, I had a 90 year old who was 100 pounds sopping weight, I'm not going to tap into her bone marrow and break her entire pelvis, like, we're going to buy some umbilical cells and she's going to feel better, but it's few and far between, and I think they're also way overplayed because anybody, whether they're Anybody with a medical license, and depending on the state, you can buy cells and inject someone, and say you're doing a stem cell procedure. So it's just, you don't actually have to be really trained in doing, right, to extract fat or extract bone marrow requires a lot of training. So I don't generally recommend that. My recommendation is if people are getting regenerative medicine, whether they want a procedure or not, they should see someone who at least is trained in having this conversation of, we could do fat, or we could do bone marrow, or we could take umbilical cells but this is what I think is best for you, as opposed to like, umbilical is the only way, just because I said, like, they're probably just not trained in the other procedures, so that's the only tool they have.
Kerry:I have a question that's related, but it's, I don't know. It's just keeps coming in my head, but we're talking about wound healing. And you mentioned like you're actually putting in a sugar solution, right? I keep thinking about how everything you learn about diabetes is that they have poor wound healing, right? And they have higher sugar. So like, how does that, is it like it kind of how you were saying how the function isn't working well, or is there any way that you would kind of describe that process of why they have poor wound healing?
Jordanna:Diabetics?
Kerry:Yeah.
Jordanna:Oh, this is a whole nother conversation, but it does, it will tie into regenerative medicine. Yeah. I mean, so, when you have, I mean, your body hates sugar. Our brains rely on glucose exclusively to function. So our brains need glucose. I can't think of, you know, I don't know all of the cellular processes in our body, but you know, we need sugar. I mean, we convert glucose into energy, but in general, there's too much sugar around in our In our lifestyles and in general, your body hates sugar, like glycosylation of cells is damage to cells. And so inflammation and sugar in general cause glycosylation and break down cells and actually accelerate the aging process. So, in diabetes, and partially in diabetes, I mean, just for like, layman's terms, you're essentially like, your blood is a little bit thicker, you know, like you're not gonna see it necessarily in a vial, you do a little bit, actually, in someone who has like, really bad sugars, like, you can see. healthier blood and unhealthier blood. But essentially their blood is thicker. So it's they, their blood flow is so poor. Like their blood vessels don't blood vessel walls don't like contract as well and like get blood to the area it needs to go. Like, it's just, it's like slow, like I imagined it as sludgy blood, but everything's moving a little bit slower. Like you're, everything's tired. Cause you get like these sugar crashes, right? I mean, if you imagine like your blood vessel walls as. their own little humans, their own little robots, just like nothing is working well. So a huge part of wound healing for diabetics is blood flow. So night, like the blood itself is a little bit thicker, which, you know, we don't notice with our human eyes, but your body, your physiology notices, and then things don't work as well. Everything's working a little bit slower. Like they're just, their blood vessels aren't as robust. And so that is a huge part of wound healing. I don't do prolotherapy to wounds, by the way, but like PRP, I've just, I mean, nobody. comes to me exclusively typically for wound healing, but every now and then I'll get a patient or I do have actually right now a very cute 95 year old patient and she just has poor wound healing because she's 95 and has poor blood supply and less stem cells around and all the things we're talking about. And so we did PRP and it really, I mean, helped her. It didn't completely heal it, but I've done PRP to diabetics and just other patients who have random wounds. And I mean, PRP is such an amazing tool for wound healing. So I don't know if that answers your question, but
Kerry:Yeah. It does. I mean, I think it explains kind of what I was thinking as well too. So the poor wound healing, you know, stiffer vessels, difficult getting blood to the injury site to heal it. Yeah.
Jordanna:Bringing it back with diabetics and regenerative medicine. I mean, no matter what the baseline foundation of health is so important, right? So you can actually had a patient yesterday who's 300 pounds and she came to me with knee pain and she's like, Oh, I want PRP. to fix my knees. And I can't just put PRP in your knees. A, when someone has arthritis to that degree, severe arthritis, you need stem cells. There is a time and place to use PRP versus stem cells. But we had to have the conversation about weight loss, you know, I mean, as you for sure know, working in obesity medicine, you know, like, I mean, the studies are, you lose something like 10 percent of your body weight when you're morbidly obese, and it decreases the need for Total knee replacements by 80%. Like that is huge. Right. That is a mind blowing number to me. And why that is not more motivating to people to lose weight. I mean, I know it's not easy to lose weight. I'm not like, but is, is mind blowing, but so, you know, I told her we can do any procedure we can do X, Y, and Z and but you have to lose weight and then, you know, it's always a conversation of, well, I can't, my knees hurt and so I can't exercise. So I don't exercise. So then I gained more weight. And I said, yes. So we have the, I mean, we have the conversation of, I'm going to help you feel better. You're going to feel better, but, you know, essentially you're signing a verbal contract with me that when you feel better, you're going to start exercising and eating healthy. And you're going to talk to my nutritionist and we're going to put you on a plan because if you don't lose weight, you're going to be back in my office. And like, I want people to be successful, you know, like. So when you feel better, you have to start exercising again. So I guess where I'm going with this is like, no matter what procedure you do or thing you want to do, like there isn't a magic pill, right? In the end, diet and exercise are the foundations of health. And I look at health much like your finances, right? Like the more finances you have, there's a compounding interest, right? So if you have a hundred dollars, you're in, you make whatever 1 percent you're going to make a dollar every month or whatever that is. I'm terrible at math, but you know, if you have a million dollars, you're going to make what a thousand dollars every month. Right. And so the more money you have, the more interest you make per month and the more it compounds. And it's the same with your health. Like you have to have those base. You have to have a healthy diet. You have to exercise. And the more, not like the more you diet and exercise, but the more healthy you are from a diet standpoint and from an exercise standpoint, and the more whole foods you eat and the more you're building muscle, the more foundation of health you have. And you do get a compounding interest. back in your health where you're going to have a better outcome from our procedures because your blood, like you have less sugar in your blood if you don't have diabetes, or you have less inflammation, your stem cells are going to be robust. Like, so the cells I'm taking out, concentrating and putting back in are actually going to heal you better if you are eating a healthy diet and if you are exercising and things like that. So I say this because like even in a hundred percent of our regenerative medicine procedures that we do, our patients get a complimentary visit with our nutritionist. Now I'm in Colorado where I kind of think, you know, 85 percent of the population is super healthy and athletes and, you know, appear in their health, but there's always more to work on. And, and the reason I include that complimentary visit, I'm paying my nutrition, like I'm losing money on this, but I truly want you to at least have a discussion about how to optimize. your diet for at minimum for the procedure to like optimize stem cell function, optimize, you know, PRP or your platelet count decrease inflammation in your body so that the procedure is more effective. You know, I would say only like 10 percent of our patients take us up on that, but you know, that's how valuable I think it just, it's, it's all related. Like you can't, you can't just say, I want a quick fix. Like they just, it doesn't exist.
Kerry:Yeah. No, I, I definitely agree. Those are all some excellent points and I can't believe more people don't take you up on that. That's
Jordanna:I know. It's shocking to me because it's free. I'm like, you're, I mean, you're paying for the procedure costs. The same, just talk to my nutritionist. I do see a lot of, I mean, the high level athletes. So I'm sure they have people who do the things for them. But but even the people, yeah, I don't know. I'm always surprised that people don't take it. She's awesome. She's so good at what she does and like can relate to people and meet you where you're at. And it's not like we're telling everybody to eat like 500 calories and like lettuce and carrots all day. It's just like, there are real, yeah. Evidence, you know supplements you can take or dietary, small dietary changes or even like cutting out sugar or don't eat cookies for two weeks before your procedure. Don't drink alcohol the day before and for 72 hours after. Like, there's little like just tidbits that you can do. Like, make sure, I mean, I, I, Definitely tell my patients, like, at least at minimum, if you're not going to do your workout the morning of the procedure, go for a 20 minute walk around our building before we draw your blood, because that increases platelet count by like 10 percent or something, so we'll have a more robust response. Like, so there's just little things that, you know, you could do to make these procedures more effective.
Kerry:So you mentioned, let's see, osteoarthritis and maybe meniscal tear and things like that. Is there any other conditions that are treated with, you know, regenerative medicine and these other, these three things you're talking about?
Jordanna:Yeah, I mean, so many. So, prolotherapy, the one I talked about originally, which is the oldest form of regenerative medicine, used to be used for everything. I generally reserve prolotherapy for hypermobility or someone's shoulder who's been dislocated a bunch. So that sort of, I mean, it could be innate hypermobility like ehlers danlos, but it could also be multiple shoulder dislocations or whatever. And the reason I use prolotherapy over other ones is because it comes in a bottle so I can get as much as I need. Otherwise you're charging, you know, you open kits like surgical kits for each of the procedures and it just becomes not cost effective to do a PRP or a stem cell procedure like with the amount of kits you would need for hypermobility. I also use prolotherapy for a lot of like my spine stuff. I don't have a fluoro in my office, so I no longer do like epidural injections, but even just some of like prolotherapy. Again, it's a concentration issue. Like, you can just cover a whole lot of like the interspinous ligaments and infra, you know, like with prolotherapy PRP is usually robust enough. Again, a lot of this depends on the nuance of like the physical exam and how severe the injury is, but most meniscal tears, rotator, like non complete rotator cuff tears, rotator cuff tears. Like just tendonitis plantar fasciitis can be fixed with prolotherapy. Any labral tears and severe, moderate to severe arthritis need stem cells. I will do PRP to them, but I have this conversation with the patient. I just don't think it produces as robust enough of a response to get the effect that you want to see for those things. And I don't know why. But I have just found that labral tears and moderate to severe arthritis really need stem cells. And then, you know, I mean, stem cells is always, you can always do stem cells. It's just a bigger and more costly procedure. I'm trying to think what else would be like exclusive that I can think of off the top of my head. But I mean, I do all of the I mean, essentially anything that's non operative orthopedic. So sometimes I'll do a, I mean, somebody will have like a tibial plateau fracture, you know, which comes with whatever meniscus tears and whatever. And I'll do a micro fracture fracture into like persistent osteoedema. And you can put PRP directly into the bone and then it clears it out. And really decreases pain. So bony contusions do really well with PRP.
Kerry:You do anything with adhesive capsulitis or frozen shoulder? Yeah.
Jordanna:mean, so I do find this is not a regenerative medicine. So, so for regenerative medicine, I mean, you can fill up the capsule with saline and PRP. So just tons of, like, 20 CCs of fluid, and you just try to, like, break up the tissue. Really, I have found, I mean, and that does work. Nothing works as well as movement under anesthesia. Like putting someone under general anesthesia and then just like moving their shoulder. So that's a surgical procedure. That's not something I do. I mean, I have done, but I don't do that. So in the office, you would just do really just fill the whole shoulder capsule and just try to expand it that way and break up any adhesions. And then I've also just found, like, for women, I mean, a lot of, like, a lot of women in PMR, we know this, like Menopausal women. So hormones make a big difference for adhesive capsulitis. We see it all the time in menopausal women and you put them on hormones and it like helps significantly.
Kerry:I am learning that this year, or no, I guess I learned it in 2024. Like
Jordanna:Did you? Yeah, it is amazing. I mean, hormones play a huge role in our stem cell health and our like physical well being.
Kerry:Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think you've given us an excellent overview of regenerative medicine. Is there anything else you'd like to share with the listeners? On what you do or
Jordanna:I mean, I do so many things, but I mean, I think, you know, the main thing is for health. So I know, you know, your primary care obesity medicine. I mean, there isn't a quick fix and I can't say that enough. We get frustrated with like, oh, you know, we want to go. I mean, I love GLP ones. I think they've changed a lot of people's life. And they don't come without work. I mean, you can take them, but the work happens when you're done taking them or, you know, in the maintenance of it. And I will say it is not easy for anyone. I mean, people that I've had patients like, oh, you don't understand you're thin or you don't understand whatever. And I do understand, but I also prioritize like nothing gets in the way of my workouts. I mean, And I'm human, there are days where, like, 10 days when I'm like, I don't want to work out, I go work out. But sometimes I don't work out, but most of the time I do because I know intellectually that it's better for me. I know if I don't do it, I'm going to regret it the rest of the day. And I've been doing it long enough that I know the benefit. And I have, like, a huge foundation of health, right? Because I do it all of the time. So when I get sick, or when I travel, or when I don't work out as much, my body bounces back quickly. And that doesn't happen overnight. So when you want to lose weight or you want to build muscle, like you have to be patient with yourself and you have to give yourself grace. I mean, it takes, in my opinion, three months before you even notice a difference. Like, you'll notice improvement in energy or you might notice you're sleeping better, all of which are important. But, you know, when you're trying to do it from a physical appearance, it takes three months before you notice a difference. And then it takes a lifetime of maintenance. It's not easy for me. I wake up every day at 5, 5 30 to go work out and you better believe 9 out of 10 of those days. I'm like, I'd rather go back to sleep. I'd rather go back to sleep. And then I convinced myself, and I've been doing this my entire life and it doesn't get easier, except, you know, maybe it is easier than someone who hasn't done it because I'm not afraid to work out. And I know what, but I guess my point is, is it takes work and every day it's worked for me, but I'm committed to that work for my physical wellbeing and my mental wellbeing. And if I don't work out, I mean, it affects everything. It affects how I interact with my kids, my patients, you know, all of it. So I think, like, just, you know, we focus a lot on that with our patients. Like I said, I've incorporated my nutritionist into so many of our programs or things we do because, because I value that and it's never a one size fits all and it's never a quick fix, right? So you might notice changes, but it is, it's a dedication of like health and life and it's worth it because like, if you don't have, when you don't have your health, you literally Right. I mean, even if you just have a cold or like, I don't know if you had COVID or whatever, but you feel so sick and you just, all you want to do is feel better. Right. Like when you, when you have your health, you can focus on anything when you don't have your health. All you focus on is wanting to feel better. Right. And so I think just for people who might be listening and are like, Oh, I can never do that. Or I can't be this person. You can, you just have to make the decision that it's that your health and that you're worth it, honestly. So that's kind of like my take home for, for everything we do really.
Kerry:no, I, I totally agree. And I echo you on the working out thing. I, you know, I tell people it's going to make them feel better, you know, and clearly it makes me feel better too. And I will say I chickened out on my run today because it was 37 degrees here. So I didn't do it, but I did something else. Yeah.
Jordanna:Yeah, and, or that's okay, right? You are human and I don't go running in the 37 degrees, right? I mean, right, I'm the same. I'll do something else instead. Typically, and if I don't, I mean, it's taken me, I mean, I'm in my 40s now. It's taken me until about my 40s to be okay with, like, I don't work out like I did when I was 20. Or, you know, I don't do double workouts unless I have the time, and to give myself grace with that too, and because there is, there is a mindset and there is a giving yourself grace component, like you can't always be up here about it because then Then you beat yourself up, right? I mean, if it's like a weight loss thing and you're like, oh, I'm never going to eat another cookie, for example, right? Then all you do is want cookies and think about cookies and think about cookies. And then when you eat cookies, you binge eat them because you're only going to do it this one time or because screw it, I ruined everything. And it's like, no, again, when you have those baseline levels of I've been eating healthy for a long time, I'm going to have a cookie, have a cookie, enjoy the cookie, love the cookie, you know, and then move on and go and. back to your regular diet, you know? So I tell people I eat whatever I want. I'm fortunate that I don't have a sweet tooth, but partially that's probably because I just haven't eaten sweets. You know, that's not, I've done it for so long, but I eat whatever I want, but what I want is healthy food. I mean, I cook most of my own meals. You know, we eat at home, like I don't, I don't want to eat french fries every day or fried food every day or, you know, drink beer every day or whatever, because I don't feel good. Right. So, so I think what I, when I tell people like I eat whatever I want, they're like, well, that, you know, I can't eat whatever I want, but like, I don't eat Doritos and Cheetos and. Does that make sense? So if I don't work out and I'm not conscious about what I eat, I gain weight just like anyone else. But I've just been doing it for so long. So my, I do get a little bit of grace in my physiology. So yeah, I mean, I just, I really, you know, my mission is just to like really help people believe that the power of healing is within them, you know, and for sure we're born with terrible diseases and there is a genetic component, but I mean, that is such a small part of actuality, like what. The major 80 percent of what, of how we are from a health standpoint is lifestyle. I mean, diet lifestyle, you know, our mindset, how we think about ourselves, how we think about the world, gratitude, all of that thing, all of those things actually play a bigger role in health than our genetics.
Kerry:You said so much right there. I want to echo it, but I don't think I would catch it all. So I would just say, you know, give yourself grace, right? Restart. You don't have to be restrictive of everything. I think I just did a podcast with, you know, somebody else earlier. And it was kind of the same message, right? Everything needs to be inclusive. Otherwise you end up overdoing something if you're restricting yourself all the time. But I mean, excellent messages. Like we're all human, right? We just. And then the other thing you said, you don't eat certain foods because they don't make you feel good. Right. So having a patient really figure out like, how do they feel for meeting these things is helpful too. So,
Jordanna:Right. And I think that takes a while, right? If you've eaten like crap your whole life or had no guidance just be open to having the guidance. I mean, that's why they're seeking your help, right? I mean, they have to be open to it. And there's a lot of psychology that goes along with that. There's comfort foods and there's foods they've eaten, or there's this person eats Doritos every day and they're thin or I don't know. But yeah, it's just, there's so much psychology around food and I think that needs to be like addressed in, all of it, you know?
Kerry:Yeah. So where can people find you if they want to work with you, follow you or
Jordanna:Yeah, so I mean, I'm Kore medicine. It's core with a K. That's my website. That's my Instagram, Facebook handles. I am located in Golden, Colorado. I do. I mean, I have people fly out to see me for regenerative medicine procedures. I do do telemedicine visits for like general health stuff, but I'm here to help. I mean, I'm here to, like, make a difference in the world through health. You know, I truly think that if we're all healthier, we're happier and we show up as better humans in the world and, you know, help other people more. So that's kind of my philosophy in life.
Kerry:Awesome. Well, thank you for everything you do. And thank you for coming on the podcast today and sharing your wisdom with us. We appreciate you.
Jordanna:you for having me. It's been so nice. I'm glad we finally connected.
Kerry:Yes. Yeah, me too. It took a while. And everybody tuned in next week for next week's episode. Thank you so much for listening your likes and reviews and have a good day.
