My Trip to Bangkok: Stem Cell Treatment [Comments]

@Samantha R
@lymebite
@bill 112

So i guess if one wanted to try this treatment Thailand it may provide better odds for success if the US Stem Cell centers are restricted by the FDA?...i also wonder what the success rate is for tinnitus in Thailand and if it is high i think i would think about it but i would prefer to go to a US Stem Cell center as i have a hard time flying with the loudness of engine noise and the air pressure as its horrible on my tinnitus so living in canada i would rather drive down to the US however if those US clinics aren't as effective it may not be worth it but its tempting to try the treatment just to hopefully get some relief as both of my ears hiss and ring at a high level 24/7....is the center in New York one of the better ones?..TIA

 

@lambos
From what I've gathered the U.S is heavily restricted on its use of Stemcells where as in Thailand there is basically no restrictions whatsoever.Thats a good and a bad thing from what I've read.

The good thing is its legal to use umbilical cord Stemcells there which are much more potent and effective where as in the U.S it isn't allowed,it's mainly adipose Stemcells from what the clinics I contacted there told me.

The bad thing is its so unrestricted there that it doesn't really appear to be governed or monitored by overhead health officials so they could be literally puming anything into you and there's no watchdog to worry about.
Sc21 seem to be somewhat of an acception,seems to be a lot of qualified doctors there with good backgrounds so that's a bonus for them not to mention the facility is pretty up to date.The only thing I didn't really like about them was their unbelievabley sales pitchy personnel that I was talking to,just rubbed me up the wrong way.

Compare that to Dr.Shim who I contacted and it's a different more health professional story.
He didn't just say"sure,swing on by and we'll get you fixed"

He asked many questions about my hearing,he wanted to see audiograms and a few other things all just so he could ascertain whether or not it was worth my while going to see him,whether or not he could treat me.
He wasn't trying to drag money out of my pockets,he was genuinely seeing if I would benefit or not.
His treatment consists of intratympanic Stemcell injections along with growth factors to aid in repair,his price is $6000 for the treatment.

 

@lambos

Great questions. I don't know the answers, unfortunately.

Of the U.S. clinics, one that I think stands out a bit is this one in Arizona - because they are open about pricing and seem honest about possible results.

http://www.the-stem-cell-center.com/

They say upfront on their website how much treatment costs - $7,100. Also, they seem to be honest about the likelihood of success - one person on TTalk had emailed them and posted the response, and as I recall they said it would be a bit of a long shot to get good success for tinnitus. Something I have wondered is if Hyperacusis would be easier to treat with stem cells than tinnitus. At this point, probably no way to know without trying.

My take on stem cells in the U.S. is that on the plus side they are much less expensive than Thailand and much safer (since adipose only, no umbilical), but on the down side maybe less likely to be effective. So for someone who has the $7,100 to spend and is desperate, it is a comparatively safe way to go. Plus the travel is short, the language is English, and for most states, you can look up physicians online to verify their medical license and see if any disciplinary actions or malpractice history.

 

@lymebite
How much safer are adipose in comparison to umbilical?

The thing I don't like about umbilical SC's is that you literally have no idea who or what family they came from.For all we know they probably came from a craic addicts aborted baby who also has a family history of cancer.

A lot of three clinics I contacted aren't very transparent about who these donors were,just something that sits heavy on my mind.

 

@bill 112

My understanding is that there is no risk at all with adipose - because it is your own cells, just being extracted and reinjected. The place in Arizona has this printed on their website, which seems reassuring:

"ARE THERE ANY REPORTS OF AUTOLOGOUS ADIPOSE DERIVED ADULT MESENCHYMAL STEM CELLS HARMING ANY HUMANS OR ANIMALS?

We are unaware of any cases in the literature where serious harm has resulted from adult mesenchymal stem cell therapy. In addition, we have not had any serious adverse events reported to us as a result of the stem cell treatment that we have performed."

I don't know much about umbilical stem cells. As you point out, I think it is important that they are screened to come from healthy babies. So you need to have confidence in the clinic that is providing them.

 

Thanks for the info,personally I think adipose are the way to go if it's your first time.Its safer and if it works then you can always look into umbilical cord cells at a later date,provided you can get some backround info on them.

Next question is,what's your thoughts on intratympanic Stemcell injections?Dr.Shim offers this and I'm considering it but I just see a lot of risk involved,I dont know anyone who has had it done through intratympanic injections so it's hard to know.

 

@bill 112

Good question. I have been reading the posts about Dr. Shim with great interest. But I do not have any insight to add to what people have already posted.

I personally had an intratympanic injection earlier this year and survived it fine. The needle was injecting a corticosteroid through my eardrum to my middle ear, not stem cells.

 

That's good to know,never had one before so I don't know what to expect in regards to risks involved.What was your injection for,the H?

The next big thing with intratympanic injected Stemcells is how many actually reach the cochlea?For all I know I could pay $6000 for a bunch of Stemcells only to watch them slip down my Eustachian tube and out my nose as a one giant Stemcell bugger.How effective are these injections in regards to actually reaching the cochlea?

 

Thanks to everyone for the response!!..I live in kelowna,BC Canada so the Arizona clinic would be close enough to drive to so i think i will contact them next week.....yesterday i talked to a center in mississippi and the doctor is calling me back next week with information but thats a heck of along dive to the Gulf Coast in Mississippi so the Arizona center would be more ideal.....also i haven't read this entire thread and so i am just curious how many have had good success in the US centers as opposed to the ones in Bangkok and Thailand?...TIA...my goodness if this kind of treatment turns out to be at least some relief to my tinnitus it would sure be a god sent as severe tinnitus is so disabling especially as my Hyperacusis has gotten much worse and also folks be very careful when getting a MRI as i had one a few months ago and even when wearing ear protection while in the MRI for 40 minutes my tinnitus got much worse and what i didn't know is some MRI machines are much louder than others.

 

I think you should ask them if they will also inject you some growth factor because they seems to be important for T and H. If I remember Dr Shim say they were even more important.

 

Dud you get a reply from him ? Did he give you more informations about the procedure ?

 

Yes, the injection was for the H. Did not help.

Good question! With Liberman's proposed approach for neurotrophins, he would use a gel that stays in the middle ear without washing down the Eustachian tube. I wonder if stem cells can be done the same way?

 

@VRZ78....thanks for that info!!..i will ask them!!

The Stem Cell center i talked to yesterday was in Mississippi,USA..here is the link below and the secretary said they do have people that fly in form all over the world so thats impressive so i will know more info next week after the doctor calls me and having just recently found out about Stem Cell treatment i am going to do alot more research over the weekend make decision shortly as to whether to go ahead with this treatment or not...i am hesitant due to the cost but if it happened to give relief or better yet get rid of this horrible tinnitus i would pay my last dime to have silence.

http://www.gulfcoaststemcell.com/stem-cells-finally-silence-tinnitus/

 

According to Wikipedia most of adipose stem cells are multipotent, which means they can only differentiate into the organ cells they originate from :
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stem_cell

They say that adult stem cells that are pluripotent are mainly found in unbiblical cord, so I guess that's why it's more expensive.

Also the quality of your own stem cells deteriorate with aging

 

Out of curiosity, how come you had corticosteroid injections? I don't think I've ever heard about that as a treatment for H.

 

The neurotologist suggested giving it a shot after a noise injury / setback. She seems to have a more proactive "try things" sort of stance than others, there definitely appears to be a continuum that ENT doctors are on in terms of more conservative / more aggressive. I don't know which approach is better!

 

Shinya Yamanaka of Japan demonstrated that you can turn any adult cell into a pluripotent stem cell through 4 virally directed transcription factors. Unfortunately, this technology still has a long way to go before it can be clinically useful, but the science works.

 

I did,he's currently on vacation and he's going to call me tomorrow via Skype to discuss the entire thing.

 

Nice, I hope he's not a scam...
I'd say his procedure is more likely to work is the problem is in the ear, but SC21 more if the problem is in the brain or somewhere else

 

Did the MRI you had months ago caused a permanent increase or just a spike?

 

Mine is definitely in the ear,since I officially got T in 2012 then followed by H two years later every specialist I seen told me it was 100% in the brain.It looks like they were wrong in my case.

 

I've heard of a few people doing it,it doesn't leave any permanent affect sadly.

 

I had two MRI's done,I wore earplugs and brought my own pair of Peltor Optime 2.They were reluctant to let me use them because there is metal in it but I insisted that I wasn't doing it without them.

My T was ok but I had a slight headache after.My H was basically gone at this point so I didn't notice any new symptoms or anything out of the ordinary.I was still under the impression that mine was brain related so I went ahead with the MRI,if I had known then what I know now I wouldn't have even bothered doing it.

If your T and H are noise induced then an MRI is just an unnecessary risk in my opinion,they're not going to tell you anything you didn't know already.They're just looking for brain lesions,auditory nerve lesions or acoustic neuromas etc.If they don't find any of these they'll just tell you your absolutely fine and send you on your way.

 

Everyones T is in the brain due to neural rewiring that occur in the brain due to reduced input from the ear.

 

I thought so too but I'm not so sure anymore,also they told me it was"nervous system"based and had nothing to do with my hearing whatsoever.

The reason I'm not so sure about noise induced T is because of a few things really,my dads brother is in the army and a colleague of his developed T from a mortar blast a few years back.Over the years it got worse and worse and he just couldn't take it anymore so he begged the docs to sever his left auditory nerve or that he would end himself.By this point he was considered chronic but regardless the docs gave in and severed his nerve,and his T stopped!If it was permanently in the brain then why did it stop?The reason I think that T stays around after nerve sections is that a piece of the nerve is still connected to the brain and these nerves are still sending the T signal to the brain regardless,the cut site has become the new trauma site in a way.

I often think,is T a pain signal or a trauma signal and that's why we see it in the brain?Like if we done scans on someone's brain and then stuck a nail in his foot I'm certain you would see activity in the brain as a result,the brain reacting to the pain signal in the foot.We know why this activity is happening,because the guy has a nail in his foot and once it heals you'll see this activity back off as the trauma has repaired itself.

Seeing as they don't yet understand T's mechanism yet,I wonder do they confuse this activity in the brain as being T itself where as it's actually the brains response to the damaged auditory nerves in the ear.That T is in itself a pain signal only different because it's from the inner ear and doesn't match up to what we already know about regular pain or trauma response?A lot of people with H have T so I wonder if that is the case.

Lol not saying I'm right or anything,just a theory that's been stuck in my mind for awhile now.

 

@SilverSpiral

Unfortunately the damage from the MRI this past spring has been permanent and what i hadn't realized was that some MRI machines are much louder than others and i have other MRI,s before had no issue with spiking of my tinnitus so needless to say i won't be having anymore MRI,s....another problem was some hearing testing i had done last fall that also did permanent damage when the audiologist tried to match my tinnitus with static noise way over my tinnitus level and caused worsening of my tinnitus and also i just had a crown put in last week at my dentist and so far it has really stirred up the tinnitus and i had earplugs on but something has made things worse so if this stem cell ends up being something i try i hope it gives some relief and also with the hyperacusis which is nearly as bad as my tinnitus i hope improves...going to take some time today to further research stem cell.

 

Evidence from animal experimentation says it's just Dorsal Cochlear Nucleus hiperactivity caused by faulty Kv7.2/3 potassium channels. The "it's in the brain" ideas are just models/theories.

 

I don't believe it's a brain thing at all,yeah sure it's involved because the T signal has to reach the auditory cortex for us to perceive it but I don't believe the brain"creates"the signal or that the signal stems from the brain itself.

I think nerves in the ear are sending the signal up through our auditory pathways but because they can't analyse inner ear activity where as they can with the brain they just assumed it's in the brain because they can physically see it there,but they don't actually fully know where it originates from only that the earliest place it's seen is in the Dorsal Cochlear Nucleous.They don't know what happens below that and until they do I won't be convinced that the brain is causing it,like you said it's just a theory.

 

I think its a little wired if the T comes from the brain since alot of people have it. But if it is in the brain, there is a lot of people with brain damage if you can call it that :/
I think its is the ear, atleast for me because i have been using headset for a very long time.

 

I don't think it's brain damage,I mean I've never heard of anyone damaging their brain from seeing a bright light in my entire life so why should the ear be any different?Sure bright lights will damage your vision but I cant see how it could physically damage the brain itself if you get me.