5 replies to this topic

[LCoruzzi]

Hi, I'm new here. I am a resource for my parents. My mother became a paraplegic following an aortic dissection seven months ago. My Dad is her full time caregiver. I have been doing research on stem cell treatments and wondered if anyone else had discovered this clinic in Cologne, Germany that has been working with adult stem cells for years and treated many patients with moderate success.

They seem legit and are not willing to work with her until her pressure sores have healed. The website offers a lot of info, videos and testimonials. Just would like to know if anyone has checked them out too.

Thanks
Lisa

[pistol_pete]

I've heard a bit about this place.
Sent them my details of injury etc. I asked them specifically how much success they'd had with complete injuries, but they sort of just sent me a standard answer about being able to treat me and when would I like to come etc. Didn't really answer my question.
I don't know if your mum is a complete T6 or not, but as far as I can gather from my own research I am yet to find any success stories with stem ceel treatment on complete injuries.
There are plenty of success stories and testimonials of people regaining feeling and function but my guess is these are incomplete injuries.
So I reckon if your mum is incomplete it is worth a serious look, otherwise do some more digging.
I found out that a guy next to me in rehab went to Cologne. I'm pretty sure he was complete. I'll try to track him down and find out how it went and post the results here.

[jass1]

i asked a German DR he family friend to talk to the center,he said when i spook to then doctor to doctor they daid we cant do anything for him at this time

[LCoruzzi]

I am so new to all this, in fact, all three of us is that I am a stranger to much of the terminology. My mum is incomplete since the damage occurred to the nerves surrounding her spinal cord. The cord itself is still intact.

So far, the clinic in Germany has requested all of her medical records and will not proceed until they get the all clear from her rehab doc. Even then, they have said via their website interviews with the doctors that only 1/3 of patients experience full recovery. The second 1/3 experience feeling and regain some function of their bladders and bowels and the final 1/3 see no change.

[pistol_pete]

Sounds to me like your mum is the perfect candidate for this treatment.
But, it's a gamble you have to take. They don't guarantee any results. It's all such a new technology.
Personally, if I was incomplete I would be trying anything and everything to get at least some function or feeling back. What does worry me though is, if all you regain is some feeling, will that feeling be normal feeling or could it be pain?
Sorry if I just gave you something more to worry about, but it could be something to ask when talking to the Dr's.

[jenny407]

I don't really know much about stem cell therapies or about the Xcell Center.
But last Sunday (31 Oct. 2010), there was a long article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung (quality paper, but no science paper) on this.

The Xcell Center is facing strong citicism and legal persecution right now because there have been serious problems (including a 2 1/2 year old who died) following injections of stem cells into the brain (which is not a SCI treatment, of course). Generally, there has been a lot of criticism of this center.

If anybody wants to try, really get plenty of info beforehand.