Tanya Martin
Living with Rheumatoid Arthritis
Stem Cell Therapies for Chronic Pain
I found this “Stem Cell Therapies for Chronic Pain” video by UC Davis very interesting. This is UC Davis Health System’s ongoing series of community forums about stem cell research. The first 8 minutes is an overview of the speakers. The speaker discusses stem cells, pain, current spinal pain double blind trials and a recent government study on chronic pain in America which found there are 116 million Americans suffering from chronic pain, costing around $635 billion in treatments and lost productivity. They also answered some interesting questions at the end of the session. Maybe we can go to one of UC Davis Health System’s forums on stem cells sometime. Lloyd just headed out to check out the Frontiers of Rheumatology, he was able to get a media pass to sit in the back of the classes, no camera this time. Such a shame, he does great photo coverage of events, even educational seminars.
One of the speakers discusses disc diseases, thinning discs, bulging, pinching or discs pushing on nerves which cause pain. They have double blind trials going on at 10 clinics nationwide, looking for 100 patients total. One speaker show slides of bad discs and one of a good disc after stem cells were given to that patient. It took 6 months for the stem cells to repair the disc, but it did repair the disc. Continue reading
Stem Cell Treatments Research
The beginning of my Stem Cell Research for Rheumatoid Arthritis and the #HopeForCristina Bone Marrow Campaign.
So I started to search for information on stem cell treatments for Rheumatoid Arthritis around a month ago (see hope can change your day). I decided to use Pinterest to pin whatever I found on stem cell treatments, looking for any rheumatoid arthritis studies or patient blogs. Some websites I could not pin because there was no image so I saved those on my computer. I will try to go through some of the information I have found.
Let me start with the #HopeForCristina event I ran into while researching this week. Cristina is in need of a bone marrow stem cell transplant. Cristina has MNGIE, a condition so rare only 70 people in the world have it; she is running against time as the disease takes a toll on her body. Her life expectancy is 30 and she is 22 years old now. To join in on this event all you need to do is tweet #HopeForCristina at 6:00 PM on May 9th 2012 to help Cristina find a donor! She is asking you to join donor lists. Canada has One Match, USA has Be The Match and Brazil has Redome these places will seen you a mouth swab test. Good luck Cristina! Continue reading
Rheumatoid Arthritis Foundation
