Betty's stem cell adventure

Stem Treatment at PMC

2006-10-25T06:25:00.000-07:00

Well, I finally got my stem cell treatment in Rotterdam. I arrived in Eindhoven on 25th September and went for Aqua Tilis Treatment on morning of 26th and then on to Rotterdam to PMC Clinic for blood tests and other trivial tests. The next day I went to PMC again for the stem cell treatment at lpm. They gave me a drip with mannatol to open the blood brain barrier, then anti oxidant and finally the stem cells in the form of 4 injections into the spine, 4 around the naval and some into the drip.
The next day I went for another aqua tilis treatment and then home.
So far feeling has returned to my right foot and ankle. I can feel my heel and the weight going through it when I stand.
The stem cell diet is very tough though, but I am sticking to it. I am also going to the gym and walking more. The more exercise I do the stronger my legs feel.
I will write more as things change and keep this blog up to date.

Appointment with Dentist

2006-03-14T07:09:00.000-08:00

Well, after researching some dentists, I have finally decided on the one nearest me. I have an appointment today at 5.30. It is just a preliminary examination to determine what way the treatment will go. I am curious to find out if he will do the procedure the way Dr Trossel suggested which is to isolate the tooth being treated so as to protect both the Dentist and me from the mercury. I will also have to get the panoramic xray and send it to Dr Trossel.
I will post here tomorrow what happened.

By the way I would like to thank the person who donated $20 to my egold account. This donation is much appreciated and will help towards my dental fees, of which I should have an idea today.

2006-03-05T09:31:00.000-08:00

Hope for Victims of Spinal Injuries Irish Times16 February 2006A pioneering US-Irish collaboration is working towards reversing spinal-cord injuries by using stem cells, writes Dr Claire O'Connell. A scientist from the US Mayo Clinic has joined with Irish researchers in Galway to pioneer new approaches in spinal cord repair. Prof Tony Windebank, professor of neurology at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine in Minnesota, has teamed up with the Regenerative Medicine Institute (Remedi) at NUI Galway to encourage damaged spinal cord tissue to re-grow through structural scaffolds loaded with stem cells. Nerves relay messages between the brain and the rest of the body. They run through the brain and spinal cord, or central nervous system, then radiate out through a network known as the peripheral nervous system (PNS) to reach other parts of the body. If nerves in the spinal cord are damaged they do not repair well by themselves, but severed nerve fibres in the PNS can regenerate and get back to doing their job, explains Prof Windebank, who is on a year-long visit to Ireland as a Science Foundation Ireland ETS Walton Fellow at Remedi. "So what's important is the environment of the damage," he says. "It's not so much what has happened as where it has happened." Several years ago Windebank had informal, corridor conversations with a colleague in the Mayo Clinic about how to "fool" spinal nerves into thinking they are like the PNS by implanting a temporary scaffold carrying environmental factors to promote re-growth. This prompted them to develop a cylinder with a series of hollow channels bored lengthways through it. The structure can be implanted into the severed spinal cord to physically bridge the disconnected ends. The hollow channels provide guide tunnels through which nerves can regenerate, then the scaffold biodegrades harmlessly over time The Mayo Clinic researchers found that in rats the spinal nerves re-grew quite well through the 2-5mm channels in the scaffold, says Windebank. Next they wanted to improve the biological environment within the scaffold's guide channels to help stimulate better nerve regeneration. One plan was to line the channels with adult stem cells taken from the bone marrow, which have the capability to develop into a number of cell types. This is why Prof Windebank came to Remedi last September. "We were looking to get expertise in adult stem cells and in this field clearly one of the best and most rapidly growing places in the world is Galway," he says. The team at Remedi are now looking at traumatic spinal cord injury in rats where the bone has literally crashed into the cord and damaged the nerves, explains orthopaedic registrar Dr Cathal Moran, who is working on the project. He says that in humans spinal cord injury is a major clinical problem. "It primarily affects young adults - up to 80 per cent of victims are male and many of them are between 16 and 30." The Remedi researchers have now implanted the cylindrical scaffolds into damaged spinal cords in the rat and are starting to measure recovery following the surgery, says Moran. They have also grown adult rat stem cells on the scaffolds in the lab and are working on implanting scaffolds plus stem cells into injured spinal tissue. The amount of regeneration will be a critical measure of success. Of the roughly 10 million nerves that run along the spinal cord, Prof Windebank estimates that around one million are needed to get a return of useful function. The group also plans to use the scaffold as a platform for other therapies, such as engineering the stem cells on the scaffold to produce biochemical factors to help stimulate nerve growth even further. "Conceptually we feel the scaffold provides a way that you can systematically manipulate the environment and show what it is that really works and then put those things together in combination," he says. However the researchers stress that it will take time before their approach could be trialled for human treatments. "We see the horizon here as being of the order of 10 years," says Prof Windebank, who is setting up the infrastructure to sustain a long-term collaboration with Remedi for this and other projects. "We have got all the equipment and we have had various exchanges, so everything is in place here to do it."

Visit to Dr Trossel

2006-02-26T05:31:00.000-08:00

I visited Dr Trossel for my appointment on 22February.
I went to London on 21st and stayed with friends and came home again on 23rd.
Dr Trossel was very nice and explained everything that had to be done. Because I have HHT he said he would programme 70% of the stem cells to go to the spinal cord and the remaining 30% to the blood vessels, so maybe this won't happen again.
The next thing he did was measure the amount of lead in my fillings. It wasn't good. I have to get all my fillings taken out and replaced. I also have to get a panoramic XRay of my teeth and send that to him. When I have all this done I will contact him again and he said he would conduct further consultations over the phone.
Chelation therapy would follow to rid my body of excess lead and iron and then the 'red carpet' would be ready for the stem cells. The waiting list at this stage would be 2 months.
He also said the success rate is 80%, so I am quietly confident. He also had a look at my MRI scan and it looks ok. There is no compression of the spinal cord so I would be looking at nerve regeneration.
So I am off now to ring around a few dentists. Dental treatment in the Republic of Ireland is not cheap so I will compare prices in the north of Ireland and the south and see how they compare.
I will update this blog on what is happening.

2006-02-12T07:30:00.000-08:00

I found this article while searching the net for articles. I was wondering if the reference to UCB transplant and larger adults means we will all have to go on a strict diet to enable the transplant to work more successfully. What do you think? Any comments?

2006-02-12T07:28:00.000-08:00

Umbilical Cord Blood: A Precious ElixirAt the University of Minnesota Stem Cell Biology Laboratory, you can actually "hope" and see the energy that leads to cures: It's the wispy white wave under the tropical sunset. The white wisps are stem cells that have been spun out of the blood by a centrifuge. The sunset-colored fluid above them is plasma tinted with red blood cells.
Researchers, including Catherine Verfaillie, M.D., director of the world-renowned Stem Cell Institute at the University of Minnesota, are focused on that white line of stem cells because it holds the future promise for improving success rates of cord blood transplants.
Their hope is that under the right laboratory conditions, they can get the stem cells to naturally make more of themselves - thus increasing the dose available from a single donor to a transplant patient.
Increasing the stem cell dose is so important because study results obtained by Dr. John Wagner at the University of Minnesota unequivically show that the success of a cord blood transplant is directly related to the number of stem cells transplanted.
Cell Farming to Replicate Hematopoietic Stem Cells. (Such "expansion," researchers hope, can increase the dose for a cord-blood transplant recipient and thus, increase the chance for survival.)
Called "cell farming," laboratory production of stem cells is a protectant way to assure the high doses that would encourage faster engraftment and a better chance of survival.
This not only assures higher success rates in general, it also will make umbilical cord blood transplants more available to larger adults.
But this wispy white line of cells, once put in an incubator and properly nourished, could change this.
Scientists at the University of Minnesota seek to "expand" umbilical cord blood stem cells. Why? The higher the dose of cells, the faster the transplanted cells will engraft and the better the chance of cure.
Current research underway at the University of Minnesota focus on seven major areas:
Double cord blood transplantation - The process of infusing two closely HLA matched umbilical cord blood units to augment engraftment.
Use of a non-myeloablative therapy to reduce the risks after transplantation in combination with umbilical cord blood.
Direct injection of umbilical cord blood into the bone marrow space to speed recovery.
Co-infusion of T regulatory cells to enhance engraftment, speed of recovery and reduce GVHD after UCBT.
Co-infusion of mesenchymal stem cells to increase platelet recovery after UCBT.
Stem cell expansion culture to increase the number of stem cells in umbilical cord blood
Use of Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis to identify disease-free embryos that are perfectly matched UCB donors.

2006-02-08T07:59:00.000-08:00

I am just sitting this afternoon having a much needed cup of coffee and thinking that maybe there might be a small light at the end of the tunnel. And also going over the past 9 years (10 in May).
My youngest daughter Zoe was only 6 at the time and I was running a playschool. My other daughter Alanna was 14 and my son was 16. It was a very rough time for all of us and Zoe doesn't remember me walking. (properly). But we have come through it and the secret is to stay positive and not let things get us down. I always look on the bright side and know there are a lot of people worse off than me. So I am hoping that even if I get a small result from this stem cell therapy I will make the most of it and try and build on it.

2006-02-07T03:40:00.000-08:00

2006-02-07T02:31:00.000-08:00

Counting down now until I go to Dr Trossel in London. I am getting really apprehensive and hope he will answer all my questions, in particular have they had good results from treating a spinal cord injury, will any improvements be lasting, and will I be a suitable candidate for stem cell treatment.
I am also getting concerned about the time I have to raise the money for the treatment if I get an appointment to go to Rotterdam within 3 months.
I you would like to donate please use the button on the right hand side of this page. All major credit cards are accepted through Paypal secure payment system.
When you visit this page please feel free to leave a comment and let me know why you are interested in stem cell research.

2006-01-28T05:47:00.000-08:00

What diseases are treated with cord blood stem cell therapy?
Below follows part of a list of conditions which have proven responsive to Cord Blood Stem Cell Therapy in house studies (marked *) or have been cited as potential areas of application in international scientific publications (see www.stem-cells.com/treatment_app.html).
Neurological Disease
Multiple Sclerosis (MS)*
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS)*
Parkinson’s Disease (PD)*
Cerebral Palsy (CP)*
Autism*
Guilliame Barre*
Transverse Myelitis*
Basal Ganglia*
Supranuclear Palsy*
Huntington’s Disease*
Rhett’s Syndrome*
Migraine Headaches*
Epilepsy Cognitive Dysfunction*
Neurological Injury
Acute and Chronic Stroke*
Spinal Cord Injury*
Nerve Injury*
Traumatic Brain Injury*
Auto Immune Conditions
Crohn’s Disease*
Multiple Sclerosis*
Rheumatoid Arthritis*
Lupus
Age Related Conditions
Urge incontinence*
Hair loss*
Appetite*
Insomnia*
Wasting (underweight)*
Arthritis/bursitis*
Digestive disorders*
Memory Loss*
Hernia*
High Blood Pressure*
Non-healing Wounds*
Sexual Dysfunction (male and female)*
Preventative Anti Aging
Skin vitality*
Hair thickness*
Muscle/fat ratio*
Energy levels*
Potency*
Digestion*
Weight regulation*
Sleep pattern regulation*
Circulation*
Imbalanced blood/hormone markers*
Psychological Disorders
Depression
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Attention Deficit Disorder
Since the first whole cord blood transplant in 1988, hospital and universities have implemented this treatment thousands of times for blood cancers/diseases. Studied applications of whole cord blood are listed by the American Association of Blood Banks (AABB).
Heart Disease
Myocardial Infarction
Dilated Cardiomyopathy*
Atherosclerosis
Congestive Heart Failure
*For the full list of conditions that have been proven responsive to Cord Blood Stem Cell Therapy, please visit www.stem-cells.com/treatment_app.html

2006-01-26T05:11:00.000-08:00

Umbilical Cord Blood Stem Cell Transplant
Newborn infants no longer need their umbilical cords, so they have traditionally been discarded as a by-product of the birth process. In recent years, however, the multipotent-stem-cell-rich blood found in the umbilical cord has proven useful in treating the same types of health problems as those treated using bone marrow stem cells and PBSCs.
Umbilical cord blood stem cell transplants are less prone to rejection than either bone marrow or peripheral blood stem cells. This is probably because the cells have not yet developed the features that can be recognized and attacked by the recipient's immune system. Also, because umbilical cord blood lacks well-developed immune cells, there is less chance that the transplanted cells will attack the recipient's body, a problem called graft versus host disease.
Both the versatility and availability of umbilical cord blood stem cells makes them a potent resource for transplant therapies.

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2006-01-25T08:42:00.000-08:00

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What are stem cells?

Stem cells are cells that have the remarkable potential to develop into many different cell types in the body. Serving as a sort of repair system for the body, they can theoretically divide without limit to replenish other cells for as long as the person or animal is still alive. When a stem cell divides, each "daughter" cell has the potential to either remain a stem cell or become another type of cell with a more specialized function, such as a muscle cell, a red blood cell, or a brain cell. Http://stemcells.nih.gov/

Stem cells are the body's "master" cells because they create all other tissues, organs, and systems in the body. The stem cells found in cord blood are the building blocks of your blood and immune system and most readily reproduce into:
Red Blood Cells - which carry oxygen to all the cells in the bodyii) White Blood Cells - which fight infectioniii) Platelets - which aid in clotting in the event of injury

There are three sources where stem cells are commonly found in our body, they are:
i) Bone Marrowii) Peripheral Blood (the blood that circulates through your body)iii) Umbilical Cord Blood
The ability of cord blood stem cells to differentiate, or change into other types of cells in the body is a new discovery that holds significant promise for improving the treatment of some of the most common diseases such as heart disease, stroke, Alzheimer's and other neurological diseases like MS, ALS and spinal cord lesions. Http://www.cordpartners.com/cord-blood/

According to Dr. Trossel (Medical Director of the PMC in Rotterdam), the ultimate stem-cell is the first fertilised egg-cell just penetrated by a sperm cell. Thereafter it divides into two identical stem-cells, then 4,8,16, 32, 64…etc. at this stage usually after 6 days it stops dividing for a day, day 7, and afterwards starts differentiating. This means there is an organization of the ball of cells that becomes an organism with a front, back, left, right and top developing by the DNA plan of the organism into a real embryo into foetus into child.

2006-01-23T05:31:00.000-08:00

Over the next 9 years I have been plodding along on the crutches. I had a slight set-back in the year 2000. I was on holiday in Spain and one of the crutches slipped on wet tiles on the floor of a hotel. Since then I have been very nervous, knowing it was possible to fall.

Recently I was visiting my Daughter in Edinburgh and she was telling me about a girl who had stem cell therapy at the PMC Clinic in RotterdamPMC Rotterdam. So I researched the clinic and discovered they do stem cell therapy using cord blood. They have a cord blood bank and anyone can donate their baby's umbilical cord after the baby is born and it is frozen.

I wrote to the clinic and I have an appointment for 22nd February for blood tests to see how I should proceed with the stem cell therapy.

This treatment costs approx €20,000 so every penny would help towards the costs.

I will be documenting every step of my treatment on this blog so people could share my experiences.

A very useful website to visit is http://advanced cell therapeutics. This will tell you a lot about Stem Cell Therapy and case studies.

2006-01-15T06:24:00.000-08:00

It all started on Thursday 23 May 1996. I had had a pain in my back for a week and it was getting steadily worse. My left leg was feeling numb and when I got out of bed my legs were a bit wobbly. I went to the doctor and told him my symptoms, but he was unconvinced so he sent me home with painkillers.

The next morning I woke up and as soon as I got out of bed I fell on the floor. I called my husband who had left for work and told him to bring me to hospital. I had to be taken from the car to the hospital in a wheelchair and during the day I steadily lost the power in my legs.

They started doing tests in the hospital, lumbar puncture, blood tests, ct scans, xray, MRI scan, and couldn't find anything wrong. Meanwhile the loss of power went up as far as my chest. The neurologist put me on a steroid drip, hoping that my power would come back, but that didn't work.

By the next day I was totally paralysed from the chest down, now knowing what caused it.

After a lot of head scratching by the neurologist and his team they finally came up with a diagnosis. I had HHT (Hereditary Haemorrhagic Telangiectasia). It is a hereditary condition where abnormal blood vessels leak, causing a haemorrhage. I have one of these abnormal blood vessels on my spinal cord.

After spending 9 weeks in St Vincent's Hospital, Dublin, I was transferred to the National Rehabilitation Hospital which specialises in spinal cord injury and other rehabilitative conditions.

I started physiotherapy and at the end of 14 months I left being able to walk very nervously on crutches.

Welcome to my blog

2006-01-11T11:52:00.000-08:00

This is a whole new experience for me and I hope you will follow my journey to what I hope will be a miracle.

I will be attending the PMC Clinic for a preliminary appointment in February and hope to be eligible for stem cell therapy at the PMC Clinic in Rotterdam.

Follow my story from the day I woke up and realised the power in my legs was going to the present day and up to my treatment at the PMC in Rotterdam.