CHICAGO (Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Twenty-one-million Americans live with some kind of joint pain that makes everyday jobs excruciating. A joint replacement is an option, but younger people in pain will need two or three over their lifetimes. One doctor found a more permanent solution that helped an active man reach new heights.

As he summits a 22,000 foot peak in the Himalaya Mountains, insurance executive John Golden can't believe how far he's come.

Scaling one of the world's tallest mountains a huge feat for anyone, but this man was once told his knee pain would keep him grounded forever.

"My doctor at the time said, 'John, you need to go buy a ranch because you're not going to be able to do steps or really get around,'" Golden recalled to Ivanhoe.

An old college football injury wreaked havoc on Golden's knees. By his late 30s, the cartilage was destroyed. He scheduled a knee replacement, but even that wasn't a permanent fix.

"When you think about knees and stuff it's not cancer, but it's amazing what it does to your demeanor," Golden said.

In his desperate search for another option, Golden found Brian J. Cole, M.D., M.B.A., an orthopaedic surgeon at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. He's the pioneer of a new cartilage transplant.

"We're taking either someone else's tissue or utilizing the patient's own tissue," Dr. Cole explained to Ivanhoe.

He takes cartilage from another part of a person's body -- like a shoulder -- and grows the cells in a lab. He then implants them back into the knee or other joint that needs cartilage.

"There's actual real healing that goes on to incorporate that tissue so it becomes one with that specific individual," Dr. Cole said.

In another version, he harvests cartilage from a donor and implants it into a person with joint pain. With a lot of hard work, it turned Golden into a new man.

"I went in thinking I would get a knee transplant and what it did was really reinvigorate my whole body my whole being," Golden said.

Golden was so excited to be pain-free he decided to push his body's limits like never before. He started intense training to climb mountains.

Amazed by his patient's progress, Dr. Cole wanted to see john in action. The two climbed Mount Shuksan in the Washington state together.

"Now that I've walked through it with him I see how important these things are for my own patients," Dr. Cole said.

Golden is planning to climb Mount Everest this spring. The cartilage transplant can be done in a shoulder, ankle, knee or hip joint. People with significant cartilage loss under the age of 50 are the best candidates.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:
Sharon Butler, Media Relations
Rush University Medical Center
Chicago, IL
(312) 942-7816
Sharon_Butler@rush.edu