South Korean Clinic Treatment (Dr. Minbo Shim)

@Cal18 maybe they weren't wrong to suggest umbilical cord stem cells

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-...d-blood-helps-aging-mice-remember-study-finds

 

@Jim51042 Yup, I think they know what they're doing in regards to the best approach . It's just a matter of how effective it will be. The good news is that the risk is fairly low (unless it's embryonic stem cells which should be used for this anyway).

 

That would be great!

Also, hi everyone. What did I miss? I am a little nervous to go to South Korea now because of the fat Dorito man up north, so idk what to do even if I was 100% confident.

 

Just a small update. He told me it "appears legitimate" (ad verbatim quote) but he's going to look up patient feedback and see if he can contact anyone who has attended as well.

 

A lawyer I contacted from New York that used to live in SK also said it looked legitimate. Personally I think the fact that he's a lawyer adds weight to his opinion, but the fact that he can't exactly check in person is a little problematic.

Also, the stuff Vaka posted about insulin-like growth factor made it morw promising, buuuut I still want in-person opinion, so your friend would be an extreme help.

 

Keep us updated.

 

Anymore updates?

 

@Artemis2K

I checked my e-mail and sure enough he e-mailed me something. My buddy travels internationally for work so he had limited information as he has very limited time, so this is the last message he had sent me, and I probably won't hear from him for at least a few months unfortunately. Not too much info but intriguing. **** denotes name I've decided to keep out:

"Hey Ron, so as far as we can tell, this clinic is a legitimate clinic. **** even phoned to get the website information in Korean text, to verify it's legitimacy via Korean web searches. I am posting some of those links/URLs for your viewing's sake. If there is anything else we can do, let us know.

http://goldnose.co.kr/board/index.html?id=notice&no=44

http://goldnose.co.kr/main/page.html?pid=8

http://goldnose.co.kr/gallery/index.html?no=7"

 

I'm happy we have a more direct opinion, but I am afraid we are already very familiar with those sites. If he would've been able to contact some of the people who received treatment, that would have been amazing. However, I think he has done enough. Thanks.

 

@Artemis2K

Yeah, I sent a message asking, if he does have the time (he is a husband/father as well... I'm an old college friend from Canada...), to see whatever else he could dig up... about the best we will get so far

 

I dont think legitimacy is much of a question anymore.
Efficiency and professionalism are a huge question however.

 

Nice to hear back from you

 

You've done enough. Thank you.

That's true. Though, as far as efficiency is concerned, I think we've seen plenty to get the general idea. It's also the only thing publicly available, and there is nothing current to compare it to.

As far as professionalism goes, that's a big question.... His marketing is crappy, and he avoids certain questions. I'm also not sure his clinic makes much money. :/

 

Well, yes and no , there is no data above 8 k .
That is not acceptable when making a decision to use his services , neither from a health perspective nor financially.
Both in terms of us knowing what is happening and himself doing proper testing .

 

It's also the only thing publicly available, and there is nothing current to compare it to. As far as professionalism goes, that's a big question.... His marketing is crappy, and he avoids certain questions.

I think this tells you everything you need to know... although even slick marketers can be total shysters. I know I already have said this on this thread. But I will say it again. Not only can you lose a lot of money, you can do yourself some serious harm. Some of these operations are counting on your desperation and taking advantage of your suffering.

 

Given that we have seen pictures of the clinic, the idea that someone was going to look at the outside or even look inside and provide new information is just funny at this point.

It's true there isn't another treatment to compare it to, but it is false to say there is nothing to compare it to more generally.

You can compare it to other treatments. If you were in a situation where you had to go to the hospital and you needed IV meds, would it be okay with you if the doctor/hospital refused to tell you what meds were in the IV (or were injected into you)?

If he were able to contact a large number of randomly sampled patients, that would be interesting. Otherwise, not so much.

Even having data above 8k is not helpful as long as he picks and chooses what to provide.

It's pretty clear that he is not going to provide the actual information that would be necessary to make a truly informed decision.

 

That is correct.

 

Shim doesn't really divulge on his treatment protocol which makes this a big nono for me. I think he uses embryonic stem cells from fetuses. I read an article a few weeks ago where a guy who sought stem cell treatment was injected with these cells in his spine at a foreign clinic and some time later, when he was back in his own country doctors found a foreign, non-cancerous growth on his spine. That personally doesn't fill me with a great deal of confidence.

 

He's using mesenchymal SC from your own body he made it clear.

 

He's using mesenchymal SC from your own body he made it clear.

This doesn't make it safe, although some of these clinics want you to believe that it does. Three women who were left blind following stem cell treatments at a Florida clinic all were injected (in both eyes) with cells harvested from their own bodies.

 

@VRZ78 is there a source?

@LadyDi I don't think that would have made a blot of difference. Injecting the cells directly into the eye probably had more to do with the blinding.

 

Source is a mail he sent me : Its composed of some stem cells extracted in your own blood and bone marrow.

 

Don't forget that his primary means is growth factor, seemingly the one @vaka had been mentioning.

 

As far as I can tell, that is what people here are assuming without actual evidence.

And I wrote a post earlier in this thread explaining why MSCs are unlikely to do anything particularly useful in the ear. I'm open to published evidence that injecting adult MSCs has an effect on the inner ear.

 

That's why he says himself when you mailing him that the stem cells are not the primary active thing of his treatment and that the growth factors are. The reply is probably lost somewhere in this thread.

 

He has told several people. He even went into a bad-English rant about how the medical industry is getting cocky and overconfident with stem-cells in an email with me. I know it's still going by his word, but saying he primarily uses stem cells, when he has said himself otherwise abundantly, is still (seemingly) less true based on what we have gathered.

 

My overall opinion about all this is that he's kind of "frugal" to put things nicely. I'm trying to not to stereotype here and sound like a jerk but having a background in advertising, I can tell you that individual businesses in Korea (that are not major corporations) do not see the value of investing in things like marketing even if they have a decent income - they usually prefer a "homemade" approach if it can save money. He's probably not doing anything magically different than the other clinics like StemCells21 except for not offering the extra adjunct therapies, extra precautions, and a high end facility with a large medical team – and he's certainly not overcharging for the procedure. He would rather treat 30 patients @ 6K per year than 3 patients @ 30K (not to mention, no one is going to hand him over 30K after seeing his dinky facility). He has more of a "bing, bang, done" approach. This could work as long as no one has been getting sick - but if someone does have a reaction to the cells, I'm not sure what his first course of action would be as he may or may not be lacking the extra level of patient care - and then you're sick in Korea and no one gives a crap. Or everything could go just fine...

 

I might have mentioned this in this thread but he charges 6K per ear .
Kind of a big deal.

 

@Twitch, my opinion: I don't think whether the blinding was caused by the stem cells or the injections is the issue. It definitely was caused by a visit to this clinic, as it happened in three different people, all who had their treatments done very close together, immediately after their visits. This clinic was doing this procedure in an unsafe way, a way that US opthalmologists repeatedly have said should not be done with any experimental procedure. You never inject BOTH eyes unless you are pretty certain something is gonna work. Legitimate medical providers do not do this.

God knows what kind of procedures they are using at this Korean clinic -- because the provider won't give you much concrete information. Up to the individual, but a heck of a lot of red flags being raised here. Who knows, maybe you wont be harmed but just waste a boatload of money. Again, just my opinion.

 

Any updates on this?