St. Bernard Simba's osteoarthritis in his hips, neck and spine has almost immobilized him at just seven years old. Owner, Jennifer McGuire said, "He's extremely painful. He can't get up and down, he can't sit. He can only lay down or stand up, and walking is very painful for him." McGuire is also a technician at the Chattanooga Holistic Animal Institute. They started doing stem cell therapy this week and are the only animal clinic in town doing it. Simba was the first client. "I'm very excited about the technology and very excited about the chance that he may get to live a pain free life," McGuire said. Dr. Colleen Smith says she sees many animals that suffer with arthritis. "Most of your dogs, especially large breed and giant breed dogs I would say almost 89 percent of them have arthritis," said Dr. Smith. She says stem cell therapy is the best treatment out there. "As far as a quality life. That's where I want improvement. I want them to move better and feel better without having the extraneous medicine." Local pet owners got the chance to learn about how the new treatment works. Jason Richardson, National Sales Director of MediVet says it is a one day treatment. "Stem cells are repair cells and it's homing in on inflammation, so we're gonna take these stem cells from the adipose, inject them into these inflammatory environments where these cells can begin to regenerate tissue. So this is one of the first modalities that gets to the root of what's causing the animal's pain," said Richardson. The Chai clinic is already scheduling appointments for pet lovers, and Simba is already starting to feel a little better.

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Animal Stem Cell Therapy

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