When you visit your veterinarian to discuss treatment options for their arthritis, you will likely spend time discussing all of the options available, hopefully including stem cell therapy.  I am presuming in this post that you have already been through diet changes and have tried supplements.  Now you are considering alternatives and how they might apply to your dog.  These could include more advanced pain medications, surgery, or even joint replacement.  Stem cell therapy is the newest option, really only available for dogs since 2008.  Only about 10% of practicing veterinarians have advanced training in regenerative medicine and even recent veterinary graduates have had limited exposure to regenerative stem cell medicine.  Your primary care veterinarian is probably a general practitioner and also a business owner.  Long hours can make it difficult to keep up with all the latest scientific journals.  So how do you discuss this new treatment for arthritis with your veterinarian to see if your dog is a good candidate? 

1.   Take a copy of this letter from Vet-Stem that you can download and print out.
2.   Many veterinarians will want to know what evidence there is to support using stem cells for arthritis in dogs.  You might want to print out this published article which covers the clinical trial Vet-Stem conducted at several specialty hospitals in treating dogs with arthritis with their own stem cells.
3.   Then ask if your doctor has heard of using stem cells to treat arthritis for dogs? If they haven’t give them the letter and published article and ask them if they would check out stem cell therapy.
4.   After your veterinarian has checked out stem cell therapy or if they are already Vet-Stem credentialed ask your veterinarian if they think your dog is a good candidate by helping you answer the questions that Vet-Stem    has provided in a checklist.
5.   If your veterinarian would like to know more about stem cells from fat refer them to our blog post dated April 16, 2010 entitled “The Adipose-derived stem cell: Looking Back and Looking Ahead.”
6.   Our technical veterinarians are all practicing veterinarians and would be happy to discuss potential stem cell cases with your veterinarian. Just ask your veterinarian to contact us at 858-748-2004, 888-387-8361 or info@vet-stem.com. 

Best of luck and congratulations for taking the initiative to explore this fascinating new option for arthritis in dogs.