Stem cell promise of irreversible damage repair - my experience. 

Writing is a form of journaling an educational experience to share and revisit a memory.

The disability status in my LinkedIn profile title, the only social media I have kept up with, comes from advanced cervical and lumbar spinal stenosis. Bone spurs in the neck with severe foraminal narrowing cause pain radiating off the spine to neck upper and lower back, among other challenges like aggravated spasms triggered by exposure to cold.  

Thanks to the wonderful world of neuropathic pain medication and GABA analogs added to my daily regimen, I’ve managed to fool everybody that I am completely normal,  just need a break from work once in a while to travel to faraway places to get my blood centrifuged and re-injected with enriched platelets, better than the one month relief cortisone shot I get here in US or Canada.

Last year, life really taught me I sucked at business and marketing. For most of 2024 I spent faster than I could make it. Humbled, I decided to take a job again, something that I promised I would never do after 55. Like the classic gangster biography where a kid is drawn to a life of crime for the first ten-grand job to cover for the $9950 family medical bill. 

Rather than risking minimally invasive spinal surgery, for disc bulge repair, I decided to opt for mesenchymal stem cell therapy.

Stem cells are believed to be uniquely able to transform into different types of cells. In the case of back related ailments, they can possibly regenerate damaged intervertebral discs, spinal cartilage and tissue that normally are not capable of self repair.

We all have stem cells within us, highest in resilience, potency and numbers when we are embryonic or nascent. They tend to reduce in quantity and regenerative capacity as we grow and age. This declines their ability to repair and regenerate tissues.

Harvesting stem cells to repair oneself can be done from adipose tissue or bone marrow from the hip (extraction is very painful even under anesthetic). They are much less effective when you are 55+, since you’re working with an extract of diminished efficacy.

Stem cells derived from baby umbilical cords (mostly harvested from banks created for this purpose) come with the promise of rejuvenation. They are virtually non-immunogenic being extracted at infancy. Expensive but magical, they may not quite let you sip the fountain of youth but definitely improve the quality of the years left to help you live it up, not just exist.

I flew 10,000 miles to get injected with stem cells (at least that’s what I hope was in the vials) that were administered intravenous, intramuscular and intrathecally. The concentration rule of thumb was roughly a million cells per kilogram of body weight.

This was combined with a somewhat equal amount of exosomes. My understanding is they are non-living derivatives of stem cells that facilitate healing processes by communication.

 Followed up by vitamin, NAD and mineral supplements, visits from therapists and a dietician.

I write this while at 10,000 meters in the clouds returning home, neck and back still dull like anchored to half a brick each, pinkies still numb and tingling hoping to be washed folded and ironed gradually in the months to come, I am grateful for the chance of modern miracles help perchance rejoin what I carelessly broke in my irreversible past.