Having any kind of pain or discomfort can slow you down
and make it hard for you to do your favorite activities.
So it's important to find help when you don't feel right,
so you can get back to being healthy
as soon as possible.
And that's just what this next man did
to find relief from ligament damage.
Boxing has always been something Matt Williams enjoyed.
- It was really fun to go, lace up the gloves,
and go hit the bags.
I found it really exciting, it's such
an incredible body workout.
I did certain exercises that utilized my shoulder,
I would feel that pain for days on end.
After doing push-ups, I wouldn't be able to use my arm.
I literally had to stop going to the gym.
- [Jane] That pain progressed, and even
daily tasks began to hurt.
- Just the strap of my backpack would cause pain in my arm.
I would be able to hold the bag for
maybe 30 seconds before I'd realize,
this is really painful and I'd have to stop,
and I just wouldn't be able to use my arm.
- [Jane] Matt's pain eventually brought him
to the doctor who determined he was dealing with
ligament damage in his shoulder.
- Hey, how are you doing?
Ligament is what holds your bones together.
You have bones come together to make a joint.
So when you damage one of those ligaments,
it compromises the stability of that joint,
because that's the thing that's meant to
hold everything together.
The bad thing about ligament sprains is,
ligaments are what we call avascular structures,
they don't have a lot of blood flow to them,
so they don't tend to repair very well.
- I just knew, at some point I was gonna
have to have surgery.
I knew I was going down that path,
but I didn't want to have surgery.
- [Jane] His search for another treatment option
connected Matt with Doctor Lee,
who discussed stem cell therapy
as a way to bring relief.
- Stem cells are basically the healing
directors of your body.
And when there's a signal of injury,
they home in on those areas of injury
and then they direct repair.
The older you get, the less you have,
and the ones that you have, the quality goes down.
What we do, we take stem cells from
umbilical cords, they get injected into
the area that needs healing.
- They had a little seminar that explained
what it is and how it works.
I immediately just said, sign me up.
- In Matt's case, literally a five minute procedure,
he gets it put in his shoulder,
he goes home or goes back to work.
- [Jane] Afterwards, it didn't take long
for Matt to feel a difference.
- It was immediate relief to the pain,
but then at about three, four weeks is where
I really started to notice a difference,
where the excruciating pain was gone.
- The stem cells also are very anti-inflammatory
in nature, some of those really quick changes
are probably attributed to that reduction of inflammation.
- [Jane] Matt also went through physical therapy
to help re-train his shoulder to work properly.
- The physical therapy and rehab part
is as much as 50% of the treatment.
Fix the injury as a result of the imbalance,
and don't fix the imbalance at some point,
that injury's probably gonna reoccur.
- [Jane] Eventually, with Doctor Lee's permission,
Matt was able to get back in the boxing ring.
(bright string music)
- My first day back, I was pretty excited to
get back in, it felt great to get in there
and hit the mitts, it was pretty neat,
it was pretty exciting, and with no pain.
- He went from chronic pain day and night
to no more pain.
- It's amazing, I feel like I'm back to normal.
I have my shoulder back, I have my life back,
I'm back in the gym, I'm back boxing again.
- [Jane] Matt hopes his story will inspire
others living with pain from ligament damage
to seek help for themselves.
- If you have ligament damage and you're
living with the pain, there's other options out there.
For me, it's life-changing, it's amazing
what our bodies can do.
- Take control of your own health,
do your research and be responsible for it.
There are other options out there.