umbilical stem cell treatment

[tamirra]

Just came across this, do you think its worth asking the hospital about it here in the UK.....

It is a pleasure to meet you. I have heard a lot of you and the work you are doing. You are a very incredible man. I have a question for you, I am 29 years old. Healthy male, correct height and weight ratio. 5'7" 150 pounds. I was in the Marine Corps for four years. I worked in ground zero for two years and I was recently in Iraq for three years and got back in May of 2007. I have had a rare auto immune disorder for some time now. I have an illness called Behcet's disease. Very rare. When I returned from Iraq one day while at home I went to sleep, woke up next morning and I couldnt walk anymore. They rushed me to the nearest VA hospital, East Orange, NJ. They gave me a spinal MRI. They saw a lesion from T-6 to T-12. They deemed that this was the cause of my left leg weakness and numbness. They put me on IV prednisone for 5 days at 1,000 mgs to lower the supposed inflammation. They also gave me an MRI of my brain and saw many lesion in my brain. They put me on immuno suppresive therapy. They put me on cytoxan, prenisone, cholcine, Immuran. On my own I decided to get off the immuno suppresive therapy. I started learning about my disease and how it effects my body. I learned alot and decided that stem cells was the way to go. So I looked into that alot and researched stem cells alot. I learned that in California there is a Dr. by the name of Dr. Steenblock that perfroms stem cell therapy. I went to him and he began to detox my body. With hyperbaric oxygen, altitude therapy, vitamin C therapy and other regiments. At the end of the week he drilled into my hip and extracted blood from my hip bone and reinjected those stem cells into my body. He also gave me about 6 million umbilical stem cells also intravenously. My immune system calmed down for a long while but I saw no reversal in the symptoms of the leg. I had an EMG on my leg and the results were normal. Since then I have had another brain and spinal MRI and there are no lesion present on either one. I had MRI's in the East Orange VA and privately done MRI's and they both have the same findings. I am in a state of remission with Behcet's but my leg has never come back on line, ever. I allso have urinary incontince and sexual problems. I can still obtain an erection but I can not ejaculate. I have lost the sensation level to obtain ejaculation. I had a sacral and lumbar MRI and it revealed I have now bulging L3 and L4. Until this day no doctor can tell me why I am limping or having these other problems. These are serious problems to me. I was hoping you can help me brain storm this and possibly find something or suggest something that would help. This has been a very long 2 years and very trying two years for me. I went from a very independent person to a person that needs help walking down the street and the doctors can not tell me why. After I had the procedure done in California and nothing happened to better my leg. I went to Mexico and had stem cells injected directly into the spinal cord combined with nerve growth factor with the hopes that the stem cells would latch on to the damaged areas and rejuvenate the damaged area. That didnt happen. Please advise further into a test that can further diagnose me or help me. Thank you sir and its a pleasure to be able to communicate with you.

[Hidden]

Can you give us some context? Where did you come across it? When was it written? To whom?

[tamirra]

sci.rutgers.edu/forum/showt...

[xandii]

wow ! Sounds very latest technology doesn't it ?

Where do these stem cells come from I wonder ?

I have heard of stem cells from a new babies umbilical cord being used to treat another siblings health issues. Isn't Emmerdale running this as a story line at the moment ??

I would have to know an awful lot more about it all before I entertained it which I am guessing isn't available in this country. I know I couldn't lay my hands on a close relatives stem cells but it doesn't sound like the one he got were from a relative either does it ? I don't have the education or knowledge to figure this one out....it's all gone over my head a bit. LOL

Interesting reading though Tamirra, thanks for sharing it ! Every little bit of info is education and that we can never get enough of.

big hugs xx

[Hidden]

Very interesting reading.

I note part of a response to this, written by Wise Young;

"I pointed out above that this may be the first and only time that I have heard of Dr. Steenblock applying an appropriate therapy that may have helped somebody. This is a backhanded compliment because I don't believe that he knows what he is doing. I don't think much of his theories that transfusing one's own bone marrow cells or umbilical cord blood cells are useful for conditions like spinal cord injury. However, it may be useful for autoimmune diseases such as Behçet's disease. I also think that stem cells may be useful for the spinal cord but it should be injected into the spinal cord for the best effect."

I note another poster says;

"My Behcets was triggered following an innocently given drug (Biaxin), which triggered a mild case of Dengue fever I had gotten from a mosquito bite in St. Croix."

I'm only quoting sections and I know these things need to be read in context, but that particuar information caught my eye because I thought the cause of BD was unknown. You can find all sorts of things on the internet, some helpful, some contradictory, it's a minefield.

Bring it to the attention of your medics by all means, it may well be of interest to them, but if I am reading it correctly, this was posted in 2009. I would imagine docs interested in that field of medicine would have heard about it by now.

Thanks for bringing it to our attention Tamirra

[lesleyg]

I know that this hasn't got a lot to do with the above, however a very conservative friend of mine rang me the other night to say she is going to have stem cells injected into her knees.

Apparently they take the cells from one part of the body and inject them into a part which needs rejuvenating.

First time I had ever heard of it and now this.

Hopefully in a few years time there will be breakthoughs.

I don't have lesions on my spine or in my brain (thank goodness) however I do have a lot of trouble walking and have gone from being a very independent person to one needing help most of the time so can see why people are 'clutching at straws'

Lesley