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Chandler Cartilage Care
Structure, surface, and the evidence between

Chandler Cartilage Care

Common questions about sore joints and cartilage

These answers cover cartilage, home care, treatment and warning signs.

Each answer gets to the point and explains what it means for daily care.

Does knee cartilage grow back?

Usually, it doesn't grow back like skin after a cut. Adult cartilage has little blood supply and repairs itself poorly. Exercise may improve strength and movement, but that isn't the same as replacing missing cartilage. During an exam, the person checking your knee bends it, tests strength and presses sore areas. That helps show whether the scan finding matches the soreness.

What does knee cartilage damage feel like?

It may cause aching, stiffness, swelling or catching. Other joint parts can cause the same trouble. A scan finding doesn't prove the cause by itself. Note the sore place, the movement that starts it and whether swelling comes later. During an exam, those details are checked against motion, strength and tender areas.

What can help a sore joint at home?

Ease back from the activity that caused the flare. Gentle motion means slow bending and straightening within comfort. For a knee, a brief level walk may also feel manageable. Build activity slowly after soreness settles. Don't push through locking, giving way or growing swelling. Those symptoms need an exam before more exercise.

Is microfracture surgery worth it?

It can help some people with one smaller damaged area. The operation opens small holes in bone beneath the damage. Blood and marrow cells from inside the bone then form a tough patch. That patch isn't the joint's original cartilage. Recovery can take months, so a surgeon must explain when full body weight and usual activity can return.

What non-surgical care does QC Kinetix offer?

The Chandler QC Kinetix clinic offers regenerative treatments, which are office options without surgery that may use platelets from a patient's blood. The plain name is platelet-rich plasma, shortened to PRP. Staff draw your blood and spin it to separate the platelets. They place that portion into the sore joint through a needle. Concentrated PRP uses a higher platelet amount. At the clinic, medical providers examine the joint and perform care. These choices may address soreness, but they don't promise cartilage restoration.

When does joint soreness need quick care?

Get prompt help when fever comes with a hot, swollen joint. An injury needs quick care when you can't stand or take steps. Very bad pain while standing also counts. Locking, new weakness or numbness needs quick review. If your calf begins swelling after an operation or office treatment, a blood clot is possible. Steady soreness without these signs can begin with a planned visit.

Sources

  1. Carbon-14 bomb-pulse dating of tibial plateau cartilage from 23 people born between 1935 and 1997 showed that virtually no replacement of the cartilage collagen matrix happens after skeletal maturity, and that neither osteoarthritis nor tissue damage changed that turnover rate. This is the measurement behind the statement that adult articular cartilage has almost no capacity for self-repair.

    Heinemeier KM, et al. — Radiocarbon dating reveals minimal collagen turnover in both healthy and osteoarthritic human cartilage.. Sci Transl Med, 2016. DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.aad8335.

  2. Repair tissue removed at joint replacement from five patients whose marrow-stimulation procedure had failed was analysed by histology, polarised light microscopy, immunohistochemistry and biochemistry. The defects were mostly filled with FIBROCARTILAGINOUS tissue carrying small and large fissures; the subchondral bone was incompletely restored, a new tidemark was absent, and the tissue was more cellular than the cartilage next to it. This is what marrow stimulation actually builds.

    Kaul G, et al. — Failed cartilage repair for early osteoarthritis defects: a biochemical, histological and immunohistochemical analysis of the repair tissue after treatment with marrow-stimulation techniques.. Knee Surg Sports Traumatol Arthrosc, 2012. DOI: 10.1007/s00167-011-1853-x.

  3. A meta-analysis of 29 second-look arthroscopy studies covering 586 ankles found cartilage-quality success of 57% (95% CI 48-65%) after bone marrow stimulation, versus 86% after fragment fixation, 91% after osteochondral transplantation and 80% after cartilage implantation techniques. Marrow stimulation was significantly worse than all three when someone actually looked inside the joint afterwards.

    Vreeken JT, et al. — Second-Look Arthroscopy Shows Inferior Cartilage after Bone Marrow Stimulation Compared with Other Operative Techniques for Osteochondral Lesions of the Talus: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.. Cartilage, 2026. DOI: 10.1177/19476035241227332.

  4. A prospective cohort of 110 patients treated with microfracture for a focal chondral defect was evaluated at a median of 12 years. Scores improved significantly from baseline and did not differ from the 5-year results, but 43 patients had needed further knee surgery including seven knee replacements, 50 had a poor long-term outcome, and normal knee function was generally not achieved. The authors called for caution in recommending microfracture.

    Solheim E, et al. — Results at 10-14 years after microfracture treatment of articular cartilage defects in the knee.. Knee Surg Sports Traumatol Arthrosc, 2016. DOI: 10.1007/s00167-014-3443-1.

  5. Sixty competitive athletes (mean age 24.3) with a symptomatic knee cartilage lesion were randomised to mosaic osteochondral autologous transplantation or microfracture. At a mean 37 months, 96% of the transplantation group had excellent or good results versus 52% after microfracture.

    Gudas R, et al. — A prospective randomized clinical study of mosaic osteochondral autologous transplantation versus microfracture for the treatment of osteochondral defects in the knee joint in young athletes.. Arthroscopy, 2005. DOI: 10.1016/j.arthro.2005.06.018.

  6. At 10 years in the same randomised athlete cohort, osteochondral autologous transplantation remained significantly better than microfracture, with 4 failures (14%) after transplantation versus 11 (38%) after microfracture. Both groups' scores had declined from their earlier peak, and Kellgren-Lawrence grade I changes were present in 25% of the transplantation group and 48% of the microfracture group.

    Gudas R, et al. — Ten-year follow-up of a prospective, randomized clinical study of mosaic osteochondral autologous transplantation versus microfracture for the treatment of osteochondral defects in the knee joint of athletes.. Am J Sports Med, 2012. DOI: 10.1177/0363546512458763.

  7. In the RESTORE randomised trial, 288 people aged 50 or over with symptomatic mild-to-moderate medial knee osteoarthritis received three weekly injections of leukocyte-poor PRP or saline placebo. At 12 months there was no significant difference in knee pain (-2.1 versus -1.8 points) and none in medial tibial cartilage VOLUME (-1.4% versus -1.2%). Twenty-nine of 31 prespecified secondary outcomes also showed no difference.

    Bennell KL, et al. — Effect of Intra-articular Platelet-Rich Plasma vs Placebo Injection on Pain and Medial Tibial Cartilage Volume in Patients With Knee Osteoarthritis: The RESTORE Randomized Clinical Trial.. JAMA, 2021. DOI: 10.1001/jama.2021.19415.

  8. FDA's consumer alert states verbatim of stem cell products, exosome products, adipose-derived stromal vascular fraction, umbilical cord blood, Wharton's Jelly and amniotic fluid products: "None of these products have been approved for the treatment of any orthopedic condition, such as osteoarthritis, tendonitis, disc disease, tennis elbow, back pain, hip pain, knee pain, neck pain, or shoulder pain." The only stem cell products carrying FDA licensure are blood-forming cells derived from umbilical cord blood, licensed only for disorders of blood production, and there are currently no licensed exosome products.

    U.S. Food and Drug Administration — Consumer Alert on Regenerative Medicine Products Including Stem Cells and Exosomes. FDA, Consumers (Biologics), 2020.

Talk through the soreness at the Chandler clinic

An initial visit with QC Kinetix costs nothing at its Chandler office. Medical providers are the staff who check the joint and perform care. They can review your symptoms, past care and daily limits. Regenerative treatments at the clinic are non-surgical office choices that can use material from your blood. A locked joint, hard injury, hot swelling with fever or being unable to stand needs prompt care instead. Call (602) 837-PAIN for the Dobson Road location.

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