Would a peptide like BPC 157 help chronic knee pain?

Would a peptide like BPC-157 help someone with chronic knee pain after a knee injury and surgery many years ago? In this video, I discuss what such a peptide might achieve. My name is Dr. David Geyer, triple board certified OFP exurgeon, sports medicine specialist, and anti-aging and regenerative medicine expert. I help you feel, look, and perform your best regardless of age or injury. This video is part of my Ask the Doctor video series based on questions you've left me in the comments to the videos on my channel. Here's the question. I tore my ACL and had surgery seven years ago. I've been in pain every day since. Would a peptide like BPC-157 help? As always, in this video, I'm not giving medical advice. This is meant for general information and educational purposes only like all the videos that I record. Also, when it comes to peptides, I am not endorsing them saying that this is something you should do. These are considered experimental by the FDA. I'm just putting this information out there for educational purposes about peptides. It's definitely something you should talk to your doctor about. Potentially, if you decide to do peptides, get those peptides prescribed by your physician. Now, first of all, with an ACL tear, we know that there's a much higher rate of osteoarthritis years after an ACL tear, even if you have surgery than if you had never torn it. The surgery helps decrease that risk a little bit, but doesn't decrease it that much. Arthritis is a known consequence of ACL injury. I don't know if this viewer has osteoarthritis. All we know is that he or she has chronic knee pain seven years after an ACL tear. BPC-157 is a peptide naturally made in our stomach linings. Obviously, there are synthetic versions that compounding pharmacies make that can be prescribed by a doctor and a patient typically injects that on a daily basis. There are pills. I don't know if the pill form or capsule form helps as much for orthopedic issues as the injectable form. But having said that, a daily subcutaneous injection of BPC, in theory, helps heal a lot of musculoskeletal injuries. If you read the studies on it, typically it's more for healing muscles, tendons, and ligaments more than restoring or repairing or regenerating articular cartilage and subchondral bone in a joint like the knee. There is some suggestion that it may have such regenerative capabilities. I have not seen studies that suggest that, even animal studies. Now, here's what's interesting about this question. There was a study, and I will say I don't think it was the best performed or designed study, but looked at a physician who injected BPC-157 into 16 patients with knee pain. There was no mention of what the knee pain was. They didn't do x-rays or MRIs before, so we don't know how much of that was arthritis or meniscus tear or anything like that. Some of the patients also had TB-4, thymus and beta-4, in addition to the BPC-157, and it wasn't randomized. It was just case series of 16 patients. There was no control group. There was no blinding. There were lots of issues with the study. So I don't know that any of the potential suggestions in the conclusion of that paper about it seemed to have regenerative capabilities. I don't know that any of that's true. But what was noticeable about that study is that it had a significant percentage, and if I remember correctly, it was like 87-ish percent of the patients had significant pain improvement as a result of the BPC-157. And, again, this was retrospective, so even that is not – you can't just bank on that as, hey, this is potentially going to help. Also, it was injected into the knee, not the patient giving it to himself or herself. But having said that, it could potentially be something that might help improve chronic knee pain after a number of different injuries, a number of different conditions like osteoarthritis. Maybe you would give it as a subcutaneous injection closer to the knee. There's some debate about how you would inject it. Would it be better closer to the knee than in the subcutaneous tissue in your abdomen, for instance? If you had access to a physician who could inject it, would that be better? Yeah, potentially. But would it be as good as something like stem cells or exosomes? I wouldn't think so. Again, it depends a little bit on the issue. But if it's more arthritis, I would expect those would help a little bit better. But, yes, potentially it could be an option. Again, not endorsing it. It's considered experimental by the FDA. So talk to your doctor and see if that is a legitimate treatment for you. Just something you want to know. Now, if you want a copy of my e-book where I talk about some of these solutions, it's called The Arthritis Solution, you can get it free by clicking the link in the description under this video. If you have an orthopedic injury like knee arthritis and you want to hear about options other than surgery and other than cortisone shots, you can click the link in the description under this video as well. You can fill out the contact form on that page and schedule an appointment with me. I'd also love to hear your experience. your injury, so leave those in the comments below. Just understand if you leave a question in those comments, I can't offer you medical advice, but what I might do is I might answer your question in a future video. Make sure to subscribe to this channel and click the bell to be notified when I release a new video and when I start my Ask Dr. Geyer live shows. Thanks for watching. I look forward to helping you feel, look and perform better than ever.