My Trip to Bangkok: Stem Cell Treatment [Comments]

Maybe you will develop some super powers! Watch for that spidey sense!

 

Too much pljeskavica with kajmak?
As much as i love Serbian/Balkan food myself, i would seriously work on that gut if i were you for the year to come.

Glad the histrionics in this thread are gone though.

 

The use of peptide injections (also commonly referred to as "growth factors") are one of the ways to boost the efficacy of stem cells once injected into the patient. A number of factors influence the outcome of a treatment - including:

• The ability for the cells to engraft with the diseased tissue
• The ability to proliferate
• The ability to survive in a hostile environment (relatively)
• The ability to differentiate into the required type of body tissue (e.g. skin cells, nerve cells, cartilage).

Growth factors assist with those enhancement effects by ensuring cell survival and cell proliferation. In addition, growth factors (depending on the type used) can also be used to force stem cells to differentiate into a preferred type of cell lineage (e.g. preferring nerve cells over skin cells). The attachment paper looks into that area of stem cell enhancements.

There are also other ways to promote the efficacy of stem cell treatments. One of these methods is by culturing stem cells with a coating that favours engraftment with the required tissue (e.g. heart tissue in heart failure patients). The following paper...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22047107

...examines the differences in efficacy between coated and non-coated MSCs. The paper is listed behind a paywall - and - as I do not wish to break the copyright, nor harm the income making potential of researchers, I will not attach the paper with this update of mine. However, one graph that I will share from the paper is the following one:



In the above graph, it can be seen how the MSC cell count had an inverse relationship with increasing Troponin levels. This suggests that non-treated stem cells did not survive as well as the coated ones. So treatment modifiers are a potentially important consideration.

Lastly, there are also so-called biological "scaffolds" being developed (which essentially provide a structure for stem cells to engraft with - this is being explored for spinal cord injuries for instance). Also here can literature be found (see 2nd attachment).

The biotech community in Bangkok is one of the most advanced in the world at this moment. They have innovative treatments and knowledge of regenerative medicine which simply cannot be found elsewhere (because of lack of know-how from the average physician "down the block" in whatever country most people live in).

 

Great information ATEOS. I feel stem cells would really benefit those who get tinnitus from NIHL. Patiently waiting on progress from @whiskeykonteq

 

I read the document on growth factor regulation.
I think I understand so much better now that without these local peptide injections a stem cell therapy is doomed to fail.
The document was from 2010, so I assume much more is known about these grow factors.
But is is sooooo complicated.

 

Does anyone know what the pathophysiological differences between noise-induced hearing loss and sudden hearing loss caused by stress are?

I suffer from the latter. At the time cortisone injections helped a lot. Still, my t is so strong that I'm looking into stem cell treatments and wondering whether they might be helpful in my case.

 

I don't think anyone knows the answer to this, and even if they did, the actual research into stem cells for audiological problems is so sparse that the information would be on its own be helpful.

If your tinnitus is truly stress-induced (and not, say, the result of an occult virus which occurred around the same time), I'd sort of suspect that would mean excitotoxic damage to some part of the auditory chain, lack of GABA-mediated inhibition = excessive glutamate = neurotoxicity to cells in the DCN or AN itself, or even further upstream. I'm not a neurologist or a doctor, though.

 

@whiskeykonteq , @monacco

any updates?

 

At this point, any feedback from @whiskeykonteq and @monacco would be great.

 

Did @monacco also undergo stem cell treatment fot T?

 

I think that was the plan, but I haven't seen him around since he left for his treatment.

 

hello,

Unfortunately nothing much to report. tinnitus is still looming. Day before yesterday I had it really loud - above running car engine level. Last time I had it that loud was 3.5 weeks ago. In a meanwhile they were days when I had absolute silence (but I had those days before stem cells too), and days when I could hear it in silent room. I'm not sure if anything changed compared to before stem cells therapy :/ Maybe it's a bit better. But it's hard to tell.
Also I took my last 1/4 of 0.25mg Xanax pill day before yesterday. Basically I stopped taking Xanax slowly in the course of last 2 months and tinnitus is at least same as it was if not a bit better. So I'm happy about that I'm still taking remeron which I will be also tapering off next month or 2. I will report as soon as I see some progress ;-)

Cheers,
Alex

 

Thank you!
Nice to hear from you Alex!
Im also trying to taper Remeron as my benzo wd is getting a bit better!
Its no picnic!

 

Thanks for getting back to us. I'm sorry to hear that your tinnitus hasn't really gotten better, maybe more will entail in the next month or two. Take care Alex.

 

I think that is a more realistic expectation of what stem cells could provide at this point. And even at that, that would improve most peoples situation, if we could just ensure the T didnt get worse i think it would allow people to cope much better with T tbey have now.

 

The story of Chloe Sohl who was treated with stem cells by RNL Bio for autoimmune hearing loss back in 2009 has occasionally been the subject of skepticism - with some people thinking the results were not true (i.e that it could not be true she recovered pretty much all of her hearing). Attached is an investigation looking into autoimmune hearing loss in an animal model. As can be seen from page 4 in the journal paper, the mice treated with Mesenchymal stem cells (adipose-derived) made essentially a full recovery (blue line) after six injections (compared with the untreated mice - here denoted "naive" or not-autoimmune induced):



Autoimmune hearing loss leads to both damage of the stereocilia (hair cells) but also to degeneration of the spiral ganglion inside the inner ear. A cross-sectional review of the cochleas of the mice (the mice were sacrificed) showed that the cochleas of the mice that were treated with stem cells were more or less in as a good condition as the cochleas of the mice that served as a control (i.e. the ones not exposed to induced autoimmune hearing loss).

To what extent the inner ear is involved in generation of symptoms of tinnitus remains unclear. But post treatment with stem cells, Chloe Sohl saw an improvement with regards to her tinnitus (as well as her hearing). It should, however, be mentioned that autoimmune hearing loss is a specific subtype of hearing loss.

In relation to an understanding of "cochlear tinnitus" - Prof. Marlies Knipper was one of the speakers at the 2014 symposium hosted by Auris Medical (actually she has been a speaker all years, if I recall correctly). There she presented the latest science in relation to how symptoms of tinnitus might develop and which parts of the cochlea are responsible for this (not ruling out other parts of the auditory system). The presentation was highly detailed and made the case that the inner row of inner ear hair cells (as opposed to the three outer rows) are responsible for cochlear tinnitus. As a dichotomy between the inner- and outer-rows, there are nuances in terms of the nerve cell fibers that connect to the underlying nerve carrying the signal: in particular the nerve fibers are more plentiful for the inner row of inner ear hair cells and these also have a myelin sheath (which makes a nerve impulse easier to carry). It is believed that the inner row of inner ear hair cells are responsible - in part - for cochlear tinnitus. The presentation can be seen via this link:

http://media.corporate-ir.net/media_files/IROL/25/253572/webcast/Marlies Knipper v2.mp4

As such the presentation nothing to do with stem cells (at all). However, one should not underestimate the involvement of the cochlea in relation to tinnitus.

Lastly: with the above, one can safely conclude that the results behind Chloe Sohl were indeed not concocted. Attached, the journal paper.

 

Hi Alex! How are you doing now?

 

What ever happened to @monacco? He mentioned he was going to do stem cell therapy then disappeared.

 

I know. Im very worried about him to say the least!
He is not the only one though. Many people seem to vanish from this forum without any form of explaining why??

 

Maybe they get used to it. Or told by their psych doctors to avoid forums and searching for a cure.
Or they get cured and never want to set foot in this forum ever again (no offense intended, I'd do that myself). Or they fall off a tall building and we never know.
Whatever it is, I'm hopeful that it's the getting better/cured thing...

 

haha.. My psychiatrist has told me many times to "get off the shitty internet researching tinnitus". I just tell him I have and to hurry up and write my prescription of Clonazepam.

 

Agreed. After a while the forums get repetitive. There isn't much helpful information past how to survive the first few months unfortunately.

 

Do you think stem cell treatment could do that? In combination with LLLT? I feel like T prevents me from having a normal life and enjoying noisy events and everything, cause I am just so scared about worsening it all the time.

 

Guess thats true, but T is serious business. And some people build up some momentum and then POFF their gone??
And I really want to know why, thats all. Give us two sentences to tell why! Would be nice!

 

I'm doing a good amount better than I was at onset. I definitely still have tinnitus. Most days I just have a gentle hiss. Today I have a full on ring. I went from checking this site every day to probably looking 3x a week. I don't doubt I'll drop off considerably soon, regardless of my progress. After a while, its just pointless.

 

I think he will want to finish the treatment and then wait for the results to occur. I'm keen to know what has happened to him as well but hopefully he will give us an update in the coming months.

 

I think stem cells have the potential to help heal nerves. So I think at least it could help your ears become less vulnerable to damage for sure. I know how you feel, Tinnitus is in complete conflict with my lifestyle it's frustrating.

 

I also wonder about the lack of updates from members doing stem cell treatments.

Since I feel like I'm not able to live with this condition, I'm longing for good news here.

I see stem cells as the ultimate try for getting back your life. Few people would take the risk and spend the money if its not a life or death decision.

If it was me having a new treatment sucessfully done, I would let people here know about the results. Maybe I would wait for a while just to be sure. But I definitely would write something, at least one line before leaving this forum.
On the other hand if I come to the point that this last treatment opportunity was in vain, what would I do? I don't know but I fear worst.

 

His T is due to unknown/anxiety / depression caused, not a clear case of the inner ear noise trauma / infection that would benefit from repairing damaged cells.

I'm pretty sure he never went there - it's a lot of money you better be sure it helps