He’s overcome multiple cancer diagnosis, a tabloid-ridden divorce and painful back surgery. Now, just as his life was getting back on track, Tarek El Moussa, star of HGTV’s Flip or Flop, is dealing with an old health issue all over again.
The last five years of my life has been an absolute roller coaster. A lot of great things. I became a new father, our TV show became a success, and at the same time there have been a lot of lows. Going through cancer, I went through a very public divorce, [inaudible] back injury. I was finally to the point where life was great, and all of a sudden, about two months ago, I was in the gym and I hurt my back again.
The first time I hurt my back was a few years ago. I slipped multiple discs. The doctor said, just give us some time and it might heal, but it was so bad I can barely move. I did some physical therapy, but because I was in so much back pain, I was taking a lot of pain medications. My stomach hurt all the time and I ended up losing 50 to 60 pounds. My skin was bright white. I was really sick. I look like a cadaver at the end of the day. After ten months of zero improvement and living an absolute pain, I decided to get the surgery. It took me a long time to recover from the back injury, and I’ve been doing amazing, that shaped my life. Things were going great. My relationship with Christina was good.
And in the middle of filming season seven of Flip or Flop, I was doing deadlifts at the gym. Next thing you know, I was on the ground. I hurt my back bad, to the point where I knew I was in big trouble. I couldn’t go through what I went through again, so I knew how to do something different. So I looked into stem cell therapy and ended up getting two procedures. They numb you, they take out fat, inject stem cells back into you. So I’m very, very hopeful it works, because if that doesn’t work, I’m gonna be back on those pills and living a horrific life. So my fingers are crossed and I’m really hopeful this time.
We’re now joined by Flip or Flop star Tarek El Moussa. So welcome back. I see, what part of your back were, were you dealing with these issues?
Okay, so I slipped multiple discs, and I’m from the midway point all the way down to where the pain was, down to my spine, tailbone area, and a sciatica shooting down to my ankle.
So you decided this time around to do the stem cell procedure, right?
They did liposuction. They pulled fat out, which is very weird getting liposuction, by the way. So they pull out the fat, you see it, they spin it, and then they injected it through my body, and it searches through my body to find inflammation and damage. And I can say this right now, it’s the future. It was a miracle. Within three weeks, I’m more progress than a year and a half before, and today, standing here, I’m pain-free.
Somehow separates these, these cells that are more likely to have a stem cell-like effect. Join us now to discuss this is orthopedic spine surgeon Dr. Hooman Melamed. Because Tarek clearly had just a wonderful result in your life, I’ll say. It sounds like it sucked in terms of dealing with all the pain. Here he is, pain-free. We wanted to have you on because we’re curious, from a medical perspective, when it comes to the back, how these treatments work, and then of course who might be a candidate.
I think it’s very, very important first to figure out the reason why the patient ended up with that condition. What is that? You have to look at the patient’s lifestyle. I think just coming in and sometimes saying, oh, I’m just gonna inject some stem cells, we’re gonna get you going, that may not be the answer. Because if the patient’s body, for example, is full of inflammation, they’re not on a good diet. For example, if you’re on a processed food, fast food diet, a lot of sodas, you have a lot of inflammation in your body, like a lot of dairy, [inaudible] honestly it’s not gonna be optimized. So you have to clean up your diet, and also you have to look at the lifestyle, what you’re doing on a daily activity. Is that contributing to having spine problems or musculoskeletal problems? So if you’re sitting all day, which we know it’s not good for you, sitting all day, if you’re, for example, work the wrong way, that’s not good for you, gonna do damage.
Yeah, I interject really quickly. When you, within the video, when you said you were doing deadlifts after your back surgery, I cringed, because I had spine surgery, what, nine months ago, and I can’t even imagine. Dude, I was so scared. So I love that you brought in that there’s no such thing, stem cells or otherwise, that are going to be a panacea for back problems. So you got to change the way you live. I’m assuming you’re not going to be doing crazy…
No, no.
…rest of your life.
Oh no, I don’t think I’d go through this again. I busted my knee, I fractured my hand, I cracked a rib, I tore my shoulder and I hurt my back.
Welcome to middle age. I know also you came on the show before, you’ve talked about your prior cancer diagnosis, both thyroid and testicular cancer. How are you doing with respect to those?
Oh, I’m in remission on both, which is absolutely amazing.
Dr. Melamed, you know, it’s both the orthopedic surgeon and spine surgeon, the importance and the effect of getting to a better weight for people, the impact of carrying too much weight, excess weight, on their bones, on their back, on their joints. I mean, just dropping some weight will have a huge… So let’s say you do all that, like targeted, so then you get the stem cell treatment. What, in your mind, what’s going on there?
Okay, so for example, with this stem cell, there’s a lot of like unknowns about it. You know, the people, you have the liposuction, people take it from the iliac crest, you know, people from the bone marrow. Now we have amniotic stem cells, which is like live amniotic stem, so it’s getting from the umbilical cord. You know, I had my own father injected with those recently and he’s starting to see results in his knees, so we were very excited. But we don’t know long-term, like, you repeat it in a week, you repeat it in a month, you repeat it in two months. I mean, nobody really know in many ways. But very importantly, it cannot do, should not do any harm. But also at the same time, for spine, like, some conditions are not amenable to stem cells. You can say, oh, I’m gonna cure you with stem cell for everything. Like what you had, Travis, there’s no way stem cell was gonna work for that. When you have bad pinching, you have to go undo that. So it’s not the answer for everything.
My experience with my knee, and I had both stem cells from my fat, they did a little lipo on me, I had stem cells from my iliac crest injected into my knee, and didn’t do it, didn’t cut it. I end up having to partially replace that knee, because I’ve gotten to a point where it was too much bone on bone. Not going to work in that scenario. But sometimes you have nothing to lose by trying something that’s very, very minimum.
But, but sometimes, I said, certain, like spine, if you have like your vertebrae slipping very bad, or you have a bad scoliosis, or you have bad, like, getting weakness in your arm, you know, or numbness, or down your leg, you got it, like, do something. So it’s not gonna, it’s not gonna help that, basically.
Yeah, absolutely. Understanding what it does is it goes in and it searches your body for any damage and inflammation, because like you were saying earlier, one of the biggest causes of injuries in the body and all these different issues, it’s caused by inflammation. So that’s why I have cleaned up my diet. I am taking a lot more vitamins, so I’m drinking a lot of juice, and then obviously I did the stem cell.
So a sure sign that you’re in midlife is that you’re a juicer now.
Feeling better physically, how is, how’s life? How’s, I know you’re back to Flip or Flop. How’s your relationship, all this stuff? How’s life?
Okay, I can walk again and I’m healthy, so that’s good. Other than that, yeah, no, we’re still, we just were finishing up filming season seven, and it’s a really, really great season, probably my favorite.
With there might be a little bit of divorced couple [inaudible], but it also is probably great for your kids to see you guys working together and having an amicable relationship, and that’s really important.
No, absolutely. Like, we do school functions, we sit with each other, we go to sports games, we’ll stand together, and it’s really important for the kids to know that [inaudible]. Still working on the business out here, filming Flip or Flop, and working on possibly shooting a different show, and might be continuing Flip or Flop. Okay, we’ll see.
Well, I think you’re a poster child for when your physical health ails you, it’s really hard to be happy no matter what else is going on. Your, well, we’re really happy that you’re feeling better, and good luck with the show, everything else. Dr. Melamed, always a pleasure.
Thank you, sir.
You can catch Flip or Flop on HGTV on Thursdays at 9:00 p.m. Let’s take a quick break.
