Health Beat: Stem cell therapy for...

CHICAGO - As a professional photographer, climbing up step ladders and walking down stairs are part of the daily grind for 65-year-old Linda Schwartz.

"There's constant activity; you're moving the whole time, really," Schwartz said

But the pain of osteoarthritis in both of her knees was making all that activity a little harder.

"I tried cortisone shots. I had something called Euflexxa," Schwartz detailed. "I was sent to physical therapy twice. I mean, I did try acupuncture in my knees, but it didn't really seem to make a difference."

"It's like the rubber on the tire, so as you start to lose the rubber in your tire and the rim hits the road, that's what happens when you have bone on bone arthritis and you've lost all the cartilage in your knee," explained Dr. Adam Yanke, an orthopedic surgeon at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.

Yanke enrolled Schwartz in an experimental new therapy that involved injecting amniotic fluid that contained stem cells donated by healthy mothers into the knees of osteoarthritis patients.

"Between the two of those, they're a potent anti-inflammatory and they also have growth factors that help promote healing or healthy growth of tissue," Yanke said.

It was, by far, the most effective pain treatment that Schwartz has tried. Unlike cortisone shots, there are no side-effects. The pain relief has so far lasted up to a year.

Research summary - Stem cell therapy for osteoarthritis

"It was a very gradual feeling of it's a little bit better, it's a little bit better, and then realizing, wow, it's really pretty good," said Schwartz.

The one drawback is the therapy is not for patients whose arthritis is so bad it requires knee replacement surgery. Even though it's still in the experimental stage, Yanke offers the stem cell treatment to his patients, but at a cost of $2,200 a shot, it is not yet covered by insurance.

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Health Beat: Stem cell therapy for osteoarthritis - WFMZ Allentown