What is amnion and how it helps wounds heal

Back in 1990 what we used to do when people would visit us is we would clean their wounds and make sure they were not infected and treat them if they were with antibiotics of course. And then once we got those wounds stable we would try to stimulate them to heal.

We used to take six vials of blood from that person's arm and we used to send it to a company who used to spin it down and take the platelets out of it. Platelet is a type of cell within the blood and contained within the platelets a little protein set. When they would concentrate them and send them back to us we would apply the protein to the patient's wound and it would be sort of like Miracle Grow making a plant grow except these proteins would make the skin start to heal.

This was early in wound care science but it was somewhat effective and people were helped by this.

Over the years companies got involved that looked for other sources of these proteins. By the way just for context they call these proteins growth factors but they are nothing more than little proteins that communicate with the cells of the person who has the wound.

Cells started to be developed by companies that harvested skin and the skin had these same proteins. They used to package the skin and we used to apply that skin to the wounds and those people started to improve. It was the next generation of wound stimulants.

Skipping ahead to what is current and maybe I dare use the word advanced today we are using stimulants that come from amniotic tissue.

To define the word amnion for those who do not know this is the bag or container that surrounds a fetus within the womb. This amnion is responsible for aiding in protecting the fetus and aiding in delivering nutrients to the fetus and protecting the developing baby from outside damage.

Amnion is particularly nourishing. It is a nourishing tissue as you can imagine because it is designed to help a baby grow.

After the baby is born and the amnion is no longer necessary companies can harvest this amnion. They buy it from the mothers I imagine. There are several layers to it but consider it a tissue like a sack of tissue.

This amnion can be dried and packaged and then when we apply this tissue to a person's diabetic foot ulcer this amnion is loaded and just brimming with those same growth factors that I mentioned earlier that came from the platelets of the patient's blood except the concentrations are much much higher and the variety of proteins that are more physiologically normal for growth are much greater.

Bottom line is amniotic tissue is a far superior stimulant for cell regeneration. The point is that we can today buy amnion from companies and then apply it to the ulcerations of diabetic people.

I love to use this analogy. It is really like putting Miracle Grow on a plant. It just wakes up those cells the patient cells that is. It helps to stimulate production of new blood vessels. It helps to provide immune support to reduce infection. It helps to stimulate the reproduction of the patient's own skin cells and the tissue below the skin cells.

Essentially it is really almost a magical bandage that you could put on the patient's wound and tell that wound to heal up.