Friday, September 28, 2007

More hope -- from Russia!

More hope on the horizon for my nephew and others like him:

To Walk Again: A local woman journeys to Russia for stem cell treatments:

"They give you shots for four days on the 5th day what those shots have done is make your bone marrow create an abundance of stem cells." .... Three trips and six injections later [Jeni] Rummelt can use her hip-flexers to crawl. A considerable feat, after not being able to move the lower half of her body for years. "I had no feeling, no sensation, if my leg fell I had no idea at all," said Rummelt. With therapy Rummelt grows stronger everyday she can even stand. And she can actually feel pain in her foot, five years post injury. .... "Every other week, something is getting stronger or I'm feeling something different, or a little bit more." .... Adult stem cell therapy is conducted in the Unites States for cancer patients, it is not approved for spinal cord injuries.


Jeni's web site is here. You can read an article written before she went to Russia, in which the focus was wheelchair camp for kids. So yes, she really was paralyzed and didn't just make this up for the publicity after coming back from Russia.

The clinic she went to offers four patient videos here.

Published results: Tissue engineering and autologous stem cells in severe SCI treatment in humans, European Journal of Neurology

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