I usually don't write reviewed unless it is a 100% true and helpful to others. I need to share this story & amazing treatment to help others not go through what I have. Dr. Handlemen is truly my hero. I had an accident that led me to a very painful dark area in my life in my back. He is honest and upfront . He is one that actually cares about his patients and well-being. I have seen him a couple times and had him do the procedures. For five years I've been through it all. All the doctors kept steering me in so many directions including surgery which is a 50-50 chance. I've heard good and really bad stories about surgery. There was nothing doctors recommended that would work. I truly tried everything possible out there besides surgery. I can honestly say I see my life is back . 5 years I lost don't let it happen to you. I wish I knew about this much earlier. But I'm grateful to know now, and not let another minute pass me by. Not only DR. Handleman is amazing but his whole entire staff is incredible. I'm so grateful for his honesty, suggestions, and his amazing work. The light is back in my life and the joy of living . Amen read more

The care and knosledge of Dr Handleman is superve, the help in the office is great and they at least stop the progress of my hip arthritis so I highly recomend this place read more

I had made an appointment 2 months in advance for a stem cell treatment. My symptoms resolved with an alternate treatment and when I called 6 weeks in advance to cancel and request my deposit back, I was told that it was non refundable. News to me. This is an all cash medical practice that doesnt have the decency to do the "right thing" and return my deposit. I did not sign anything and was not informed of this policy. Shame on you Dr Handleman. read more

I so wanted to be able to do a positive review of Dr. Handleman. I went in for stem cell treatment in 2016, including expansion and some other preliminary treatment to prepare things. The stem cell treatment apparently lasted a bit less than 2 months. What I discovered in 2018 when I sent in the same MRI of my hip (the one Dr. Handleman had in 2016) to the Regenexx clinic in Colorado to set up a follow-up in the Cayman Islands (where they can do a culture and grow more stem cells) I was told they would not do the procedure because even in the 2016 MRI I was a terrible candidate, and should not have gone through the 2016 procedure. On top of that, a couple months after my 2016 stem cell treatment when Dr. Handleman was to contact me and do a check in phone appointment I never heard from him. I tried on a couple of occasions to reach him, but was never contacted back. The total of my procedure was almost exactly $10,000, with the various supplements I had to take to get ready for the treatment. (The Stem Cell Support Formula was about $100/bottle, which lasts about 1 month.) In 2018 I had the hip replaced and saw why I was such a horrible candidate. The hip ball had a lot of pitting and damage that was not reparable with stem cells. When the Colorado office of Regenexx told me about the MRI findings I had sent them, I requested a copy of the MRI myself so I could look at it. Pretty clearly obvious to me as well that the ball of my hip was basically rotten and of no value to try and save with stem cells. Long story short . . . I was outside the time-frame in California to effectively file a legal claim to recover my money back, so I figured maybe I can warn others to pay more attention to their MRI's and what your primary care physicians tell you. I believe stem cell procedures work very well, and are a great alternative, but in come cases it's entirely a waste of good money. BTW, the new hip is absolutely awesome. I have no restrictions of any kind, and no other issues that I've heard of from others. I wish Dr. Handleman had been more forthright in his assessment of my condition and whether it would help me. And, it would have been nice if he had followed-up as promised in 2016. read more

My husband visited Dr. Handleman after contacting the office numerous times and never receiving a return phone call or email. When we finally got an appointment, upon our arrival, without being notified, there was a cameraman there stating he was going to make a commercial of my husband's visit from the point of checking in with the receptionist to the actual consultation with Dr. Handleman. The office staff lost his medical records and MRIs a few times -- not a good indication of things to come. Dr. Handleman has no "bedside" manner, was aloof and disinterested in my husband's needs and concerns. My husband wanted a doctor to do stem cell replacement therapy for his condition, but with a staff and doctor unresponsive to even returning phone calls or addressing our concerns, this is NOT the office for us -- esp. if there was an infection or anything else that went wrong. So, we opted NOT to use this doctor and this office, and located a more professional, compassionate and skilled doctor in the East Bay. read more

I have been a patient of Dr. Handleman's for years. He has given me many rounds of Prolotherapy, PRP and stem cell therapies with excellent results. I have had treatments in my hips, knees, and low back all with great results. Highly recommended. read more

4 years ago I was diagnosed with cartilage degeneration in my left hip partly due to the 40+ years of active tennis playing (started playing when I was 5) and hereditary arthritis. As no other procedures existed in which to repair the cartilage, my orthopedic surgeon could only offer limited cortisone shots leading inevitably to hip replacement surgery. If you've never researched what is involved in hip replacement surgery I suggest you do so as this is an extreme operation for someone in my condition. Not to mention, but I will, that you'll need to have it done again in 15 years. Offered no other solutions, I didn't give up. I researched other medical alternatives and found that much progress was being made in stem cell regeneration but initially in medical facilities in the mid-West and East Coast. I stayed optimistic and was rewarded by finding Healthlink Medical Center in San Rafael. I attended a seminar being offered and hosted by Dr. Paul Handleman to further my education and to ask pointed questions specific to my condition. I found Dr. Handleman to be VERY knowledged and was extremely appreciative to the time he spent with me discussing how the stem cell procedure could prove to be advantageous. Within a year I made the decision to move forward with the procedure, worked with Dr. Handleman's excellent and caring staff (Dustin, Jessica, Rachael and Natalie) to arrange the most convenient time that allowed me the necessary recovery period required and never looked back. Now, over a week after having the procedure I am ecstatic to write that I no longer live with a dull throbbing pain shooting down my left leg. I had the procedure done on a Wednesday and was able to begin walking on my left leg that Saturday. Although I kept a positive attitude, I didn't expect immediate results. After walking around my house I felt I must be dreaming as I no longer had the dull throbbing pain that I had been living with for the past 4 years. I started to cry. It's been over a week now and I'm still living a dream!! I walk with no pain. I sleep on my left side with no pain. I go up and down stars with no pain. My mental attitude has changed because I feel I've been given back my quality of life. No cortisone shot gave me back the use of my leg like stem cell regeneration has done. I know it's early and time will tell but honestly I only see me getting better. To anyone reading this who is wondering if stem cell regeneration is the way to go - I say emphatically - YES!! At minimum, do your homework but don't believe your only recourse is medical replacement surgery. There is hope and I found it through Healthlink Medical Center, Dr. Handleman and, to me, his award winning team!! Stay positive!! read more

I had the extraordinary experience of Dr. Handleman treating both my knees and foot, first with prolotherapy, later in the week the Regenexx non-surgical stem cell procedure and seven days later injections of super concentrated platelets taken from my own blood. All steps of these procedures were professional and almost painless. Dr. Handleman has a warm and professional staff of people who, quite in contrast to the preceding review, promptly scheduled my visits and procedures. The doctor himself inspired a great deal of confidence before this treatment, truly one of the few doctors I would entrust my wellbeing to. Chronic pain and limping have given way to incredible flexibility already in my knees even though the last procedure was finished yesterday and I was told noticeable results would be one to three months. I will write another review then but I can say now that this was an incredible experience! I truly have hope to walk normally again and frankly, there was no hope before this. read more

R-hip arthritis: Dr Handelman injected mesenchymal cells twice, and it slowly got better with localized heat and supplements over 2 years. I had no hope according to my in-system doctors. One thing that really helped during the procedure was my feet being massaged. It took away a great amount of any painful parts. The 2nd time I had to ask the assistant for the massage. She really did not want to touch my feet. The first time, a different assistant, did the massage. Dr Handelman's wife taught her how to do this. (BTW, my mother, an LPN, taught me how to massage feet, so I was able to show the second assistant how to do this.) I am going for a 3rd round next year. Will do a PRP in next few months. Health Link through Dr Handelman is very legit. They can help you do your own health work when others don't know how. I hear Stanford is just beginning to do this for knees. I guess they are afraid of losing out on the money aspect. However, the experience and continued training Dr Handelman maintains is far ahead of any others. Sincerely, Tblackburn. read more

I got stem cell treatment on my knee about 3 months ago with Dr. Handleman. I was told I needed a knee replacement by Kaiser and I was just not ready for it.You can just tell he has a passion for stem cells and the power they have. He thinks out each injection and uses his hands to envision what he is trying to do. I was joking with him and telling him I was going to start calling a stem cell artist.What I mean is he is slow and methodical and takes time to reach his vision. There was no doubt that he loves helping people heal naturally. My knee is about 30% more flexible and it has only been 3 months. I have never had the acute jaw-dropping tear evoking pain that I had before the treatment again. My knee cap was fractured before stem cell treatment so it is still healing and is sore sometimes but not painful. It is hard to put pain into words for others to truly understand one's pain. I think that the best way to describe it is by saying that I feel hope instead of defeat. I have had my groceries delivered for a year because I could not handle the pain of walking around the grocery store. Yesterday, I finally grocery shopped without too much pain. It is the little things like this that tell me the stem cell procedure was worth the money. I am going back to treat my other leg in the future. read more

I received the stem cell treatment 4 days ago. Dr. Handleman told me I was a fair to poor candidate for this treatment but that there most likely be a 25% expected improvement. Still I had infections in my knee after hardware was removed from a previous injury so I wanted to try to avoid any infections after knee replacement surgery that I had previously scheduled at Stanford. There is really no downside to this treatment other than the cost. $7600 plus a knee warmer and supplements which adds about $500 more was the cost of this treatment. Dr. Handleman mentioned that it would be an option to go to the Cayman Islands to a clinic run by Regenexx where my stem cells could be grown for two weeks and multiplied. He said that the cost would be $17,000 there for the treatment. Growing stem cells would enable thousands of times more stem cells to be injected. It would be as good as two treatments here. You have to more or less stay off the knee for about a month for recovery so if money is not an issue and a two week vacation in the Cayman islands sounds good then it would be a option to consider. You would probably have to wait another week or so to travel back and you would want to use a wheel chair to not disturb the stem cells. During the procedure you can watch a florescope to see exactly where the needles go. It is a very exact placement. You can tell by the way he touches the knee that he knows exactly where the pain is and that he has a lot of experience with this procedure. It took me a while to figure out who Regenexx is and how the process worked. I thought the there would be a large Regenexx clinic in California after looking at the website but later I realized that they more or less license doctors with their technology. It was necessary to find the actual doctor that was licensed. One could get the impression that it was overly hyped when looking for a clinic turns out to be a small doctor's office. Once this relationship is clear then a small doctor's office is fine and actually more personal. I hope to add the results to this review in a few months. I am unhappy that the FDA doesn't allow stem cells to be grown in the US. They seem to be preventing doctors from giving the best care that they are capable of. I don't see how they can call stem cells grown from my own stem cells a drug that they should regulate. read more