April 30^th is World Veterinary Day. Taking place each year on the last Saturday of April, World Veterinary Day was created in 2000 by the World Veterinary Association as an annual celebration of the veterinary profession. Each year, there is a new theme. You can read about last year’s theme here. This year, the theme is Strengthening Veterinary Resilience.

Why is Veterinary Resilience Important?

There’s no doubt that veterinary work is very rewarding. From veterinarians to technicians to researchers to administrative staff, those who work in the veterinary field are helping to advocate for the welfare of creatures who do not have a voice yet offer unconditional love. That being said, the work can also be mentally, physically, and emotionally taxing. Burnout and other health issues have risen in recent years and serving as frontline workers during the pandemic presented entirely new challenges.

According to the World Veterinary Association, “Veterinarians, much like their patients, need proper tools and support to maintain their personal health and wellness. Healthy animals require healthy advocates. Resilient veterinarians are better equipped to handle the daily challenges and crises that may occur in their practices.” While many would argue that those in the veterinary field are a very resilient bunch, the WVA claims that veterinary resilience “requires appropriate support by associations, institutions, and governments to ensure adequate education, training, mentorship, and collegiality. It also requires ongoing research to better understand the mental and physical burdens veterinarians face and the opportunities to provide greater support.”

VetStem Fosters Veterinary Resilience

The majority of VetStem employees came to VetStem with prior experience in a veterinary clinic. Collectively, our team has been in this field for a very, very long time. And while we consider ourselves extremely lucky to be in this life-saving field, we also recognize the need for increased resilience support.

In an effort to support our veterinary clients, VetStem offers numerous free services to help them provide the best experience for their patients and clients when it comes to stem cell therapy. Some of these services include patient-specific veterinarian consultations, interactive and non-interactive trainings for veterinarians and their staff, as well as continued research in the field of regenerative veterinary medicine.

Much of our research has focused on utilizing stem cell therapy to treat difficult yet prevalent diseases with limited treatment options. Numerous animals have been treated under VetStem’s clinical research programs and have experienced a better quality of life after treatment. For instance, over 200 cats have received VetStem Cell Therapy for feline renal disease, one of the top causes of sickness and death in cats. Doing the research and collecting the continual data for this clinical research program has enabled us to help veterinarians treat sick cats who may have had no other treatment options.

Thus, while we don’t work directly with animals at VetStem, we do our best to support our veterinary clients in their efforts to provide stem cell therapy to their patients. And we pledge to continue our research so that we can develop additional regenerative medicine treatment options and products for the animals who need them.

Though we are a veterinary stem cell company, we always keep up with regenerative medicine news and breakthroughs in human medicine. As a leader in government compliant stem cell therapy treatments, we were not surprised to learn that in February, Medicare announced that it will recoup all the money it paid physicians, going back two years, for dubious birth tissue injections. Without any evidence of efficacy, birth tissue and exosome products were marketed by orthopedic and chiropractic clinics to their patients for indications such as longevity, pain, chronic inflammation, autoimmune disease, and Lyme disease, as well as numerous other chronic degenerative diseases.

On December 6^th, 2019, the FDA issued a Public Safety Notification on Exosome Products to inform the public of multiple recent reports of serious adverse events experienced by patients in Nebraska who were treated with unapproved products marketed as containing exosomes. Despite this warning, these clinics continued to deceive patients and practice administering the unapproved cell treatments. 

Our commitment is to always maintain the highest standards for both patients and government regulators. At VetStem and our human company, Personalized Stem Cells, we take pride in our business model of providing elevated quality and safety of our stem cell products for both animal and human patients. It is important to note that our manufacturing facilities are FDA manufacturing compliant and have both FDA tissue establishment registration and a California tissue bank license.

CEO and Founder, Dr. Bob Harman, stated, “We continue to build patient centric cell-based businesses around scientifically and medically validated disease indications and treatments, always in compliance with federal and state guidelines. As the industry continues to mature and more products become approved by the FDA, our strong regulatory team and patent estate builds for the continued success of both companies and supports the reputation of the cell therapy industry.”

Last week, The International Veterinary Academy of Pain Management (IVAPM) hosted the first Pain Management Forum in Denver, CO. VetStem team members Kristi Hauta, Dr. Amber Vibert, and Dr. Anne Hale attended the conference to provide education on all things regenerative medicine, and to learn more about the most current research in pain and pain management. VetStem also proudly sponsored a dry lab with a long-time VetStem user and current president of the IVAPM, Dr. Douglas Stramel.

The IVAPM seeks to “advocate for best practices in the treatment of animals in pain.” The IVAPM was originally known as the Companion Animal Pain Management Consortium and was co-founded in 2001 by long-time VetStem client and collaborator, Dr. Jamie Gaynor. The Academy provides educational resources including a program to become a Certified Veterinary Pain Practitioner (CVPP) as well as online resources for veterinary professionals and animal owners. The IVAPM outreach in the veterinary community also consists of research funding and scholarships to help promote the welfare of animals around the world.

What we found at this intimate conference was a passionate group of people who work tirelessly to provide evidence-based education for veterinary professionals and pet owners so we can become more skilled in recognizing, understanding, and alleviating animal pain. We were privileged to have lectures provided by several experts in this field including multiple members of the IVAPM board of directors.

VetStem’s mission to improve the quality of life of animals and humans starts with understanding, treating, and preventing pain through regenerative medicine. Only through open communication of ideas, research, and collaboration with our colleagues throughout the world can we achieve this goal. Attending the Pain Management Forum and connecting with IVAPM members certainly brought these goals further into fruition.

If you think your pet may be in pain, you can use these online resources to help you learn more: Animal Owners – IVAPM, The Feline Grimace Scale, The Horse Grimace Scale, and Canine and Feline Pain Scales. But as always, your veterinarian is your best resource to assess your pet’s condition. To find out if regenerative medicine can help, click here.

April 6^th was National Walking Day. Regular walks can have several health benefits for both people and our dogs! In this blog, we will look at the potential benefits that come with taking your dog on regular walks.

Walking to Improve Joint Health

Walking is a relatively easy and low-impact exercise that has been shown to reduce symptoms related to osteoarthritis. Regular walks can help you lose or maintain weight, thereby causing less stress on the joints. It can also lead to increased muscle mass, which shifts the pressure and weight from your joints to your muscles. In addition, it increases joint fluid circulation which is beneficial to maintaining healthy joint cartilage.

Since 1 in 5 dogs is diagnosed with osteoarthritis, it is important to take care of their joint health from an early age. Like in people, walking can help to reduce the symptoms or delay the onset of osteoarthritis in dogs. And as a low-impact activity, walking puts minimal stress on the body, thereby reducing the risk of injury.

Additional Benefits of Walking

We mentioned above that regular walks can help your dog lose or maintain an ideal weight. While this is of course good for their joints, it is also beneficial to their overall health. Unfortunately, obesity has become a major health issue in pets. Obesity in dogs can lead to several diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, and several types of cancer. By helping your dog achieve and maintain an ideal weight, you are potentially helping them live longer.

Additionally, regular walks can help to regulate your dog’s digestive and urinary systems. Routine walks outside can help keep your dog “regular” and prevent constipation while regular emptying of the bladder can help reduce the risk of bladder infections.

Lastly, regular walks outside with your dog can be beneficial for your dog’s mental and emotional health. Walking exercises the mind as well as the body. Allowing your dog to explore and smell different scents provides mental stimulation. And by giving them something constructive to do, such as walking, you may prevent them from doing something destructive, like chewing on your favorite pair of shoes.

As leaders in the field of regenerative veterinary medicine, we are proud to announce that we have reached a new stem cell processing milestone. VetStem has processed over 15,000 patient samples resulting in over 35,000 stem cell treatments for animals across the United States and Canada. Over 2,200 veterinarians have utilized VetStem Cell Therapy processing services for their patients.

The majority of these treatments have been for orthopedic conditions such as osteoarthritis as well as injured tendons and ligaments in dogs, cats, and horses. We have also provided cell therapy services for patients with alternate conditions such as renal disease, inflammatory bowel disease, gingivostomatitis, spinal conditions, and more as part of our clinical research programs.

While most know that we primarily work with domestic animals, we also work with multiple exotic animal organizations and their programs to provide stem cell therapy for several exotic species. To date, nearly 200 exotic animals have been treated. Those animals include elephants, cheetahs, rhinos, several species of bears, giraffes, penguins, dolphins and more.

We are very proud to be leaders in this field of cutting-edge medicine. And we look forward to what the future holds! That being said, we wouldn’t be where we are without all of YOU, our pet owners and veterinary clients, who have trusted VetStem to handle your pets’ and patients’ stem cells over the past nearly two decades. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts!