Stem Cells

[Chris]

Stem-Kine

Hi; I just want to post that I have now been taking this stuff for two weeks (first week at 3 per day, then a five day intermission, then restart at 2 per day) and am feeling quite noticeable improvement in general well-being, energy, ability to walk without provoking PEM, or when I do it is quite short lived and minor, and sleep. Best bang for the buck I have found yet, by far; if this continues, don't think I will need that Costa Rica trip after all! Best, Chris

PS, no, they are not paying me, nor did I get the stuff for free!

 

[Cloud]

Hi; I just want to post that I have now been taking this stuff for two weeks (first week at 3 per day, then a five day intermission, then restart at 2 per day) and am feeling quite noticeable improvement in general well-being, energy, ability to walk without provoking PEM, or when I do it is quite short lived and minor, and sleep. Best bang for the buck I have found yet, by far; if this continues, don't think I will need that Costa Rica trip after all! Best, Chris

PS, no, they are not paying me, nor did I get the stuff for free!

That's great news Chris.....good for you. May I ask where you got the treatment regimine (#3/day x 1 week...)? Also, may I ask the supplement facts (ingedients) for stem-kine? Their site only states "food supplement, natural ingredients". Thanks, and I hope it continues to work for you.

On the other issue of mailing stem cells.....I would think the USPS scanning process could degrade the quality of such fragile cargo? Especially international shipments. But, I don't really know.

 

[Chris]

Stem-Kine follow up

Hi, Cloud; if you persist in exploring their website, you will find more info on the ingredients. No, they are not shipping stem cells; they call the product a stem cell mobilizer, and it contains a proprietary blend of Vit D (1,000 units per capsule!), ellagic acid (found in pomegranate, raspberries, etc), beta glucans, found in mushrooms, oats, etc., astragalus, and other stuff, all modified by being fermented by varous lactobacillus bugs. They have produced two small studies, findable on PubMed by typing "stem-kine" into the "search" function.

In those studies they used a dose of 2 x 2 per day for two weeks; their graphs showed that the percentage of pregenitor epithelial stem cells increased nicely until about day 8, when they started to drop again. If you read the posts above from Mr. Kite and myself you will find some discussion about doses and possible depletion caused by over stimulation. I emailed the company about doses, suggesting that maybe a pulsed dose of more than 2 a day (which is what is recommended on the bottles) might be more productive--they wrote back saying it was possible, but they had not done the research, and were not prepared to comment further.
So I made up my own schedule--will take 3 a day for 8 days, then break for a week, and so on. This is purely my own invention, you have to understand; what they are currently recommending is 2 per day continuously, though one of their testimonial writers says they dropped to 1 per day after a while because that was all they needed.

The stuff does seem to be helping me, but obviously I am no doctor, and cannot take any responsibility for how you decide to act.

Mr. Kite, very sorry to hear about your reaction; clearly, I do not know exactly to what I owe my improvement, but improvement so far it is, and so I will continue ..until or unless something happens to make me stop, as has happened before with other things... ah well, ...
best, Chris

 

[Chris]

Hi, Mr. Kite; I was resuming Artesunate during the week off from Stem-Kine, so this is definitely not a double-blinded placebo controlled experiment! My very subjective impression is that the improvement is mostly during the weeks on the SK, though it is too early to really be clear about this. I will keep posting periodically either way.

I take your warning re FDA interference seriously enough that I will soon order some more--it ain't cheap but compared to some alternatives it is indeed dirt cheap, and though I bought 3 months supply, would feel safer with a couple more bottles just in case your hint proves prophetic! Best, Chris

 

[Sushi]

mOjoey,

I am friends with a Cheney patient who has been 3 times to Panama--she is older and more sick than most of his patients. She recently had the spinal infusion and reported immediate cognitive improvement and now has gone into the expected period of sleeping a lot and lassitude. She has improved markedly but told me that, from her experience and that of others she knows, she would not begin stem cell treatment now--unless the patient was dying. (she more or less was)

She says this because they are tweaking the protocol all the time and no one yet knows whether XMRV will eventually infect the new stem cells. Cheney is testing her and his other stem cell patients rigorously and giving them something (not sure what) that could possibly protect the new cells from XMRV--though this is just a guess on his part--no clinical evidence.

Also, re: the bison cell signalling factors, my doctor is in touch with Cowden and I could ask him whether Cowden has them (and whether he could get them himself) on my next appointment in about 10 days. Otherwise, I think it is very hard to contact Cowden.

Sushi

 

[Chris]

those cell signaling factors...

Hi, Sushi--any chance you could ask your doctor whether there is any possibility of getting some CSFs from eating--raw, if necessary--fresh grass fed bison? I have to assume the answer is none, but would love to have more definitive info. I could order a whole fresh bison heart, but it would weigh something near 1 kilo, I believe, cost quite a bit--and what would I do with a kilo of bison heart??

Meanwhile, I will keep up the Stem-Kine--it really does seem to be doing good things, even at my advanced age of 77--which might inhibit clinics from giving me the "real thing," even if I could muster the money to go. Best wishes, Chris

 

[Chris]

cognitive stuff

Hi, Mr. Kite; I note retrospectively that I ducked your difficult quesiton about cognitive impairment. I find this difficult to separate from the general question of energy, but I will take a shot at it, however clumsily and imperfectly. One form that my cognitive impairment took was in the rapid processing of mainly visual input--I quit driving for two or three periods during the 3 1/2 years I have been with CFS, for instance--felt the danger of missing a vital bit of info was too great. But I have been fairly comfortable driving for the last year and a half, though at times conscious of having to focus my attention, and strictly limit things like conversation. Certainly driving is now an easier pleasure--I feel confident and relaxed.

Another test is my desire / ability to get on with my long term project, which involves using German, which I only started to learn 7 years ago, a process brutally interrupted first by what led to heart surgery in late 2004, and then again by CFS late 2006 and on. I did do some work on the project last summer, when I was feeling relatively well, but that pretty much stopped over the winter and became impossible during Jan-March, when I crashed and had real problems. I have just restarted the project, and though I am not back up to speed again, I have made a beginning, and that feels good.

So I think my cognitive functioning is coming back slowly, though it has a way to go still. But it takes energy to tackle texts in what is still a largely foreign language, and that energy still ebbs and flows--I do a bit too much one day feeling good (as I did two days ago) and there follow a couple of lower energy days, when the thought of plunging back into German seems too daunting and gets put off in favour of something else. But a few days ago I did make myself a rough translation of a very difficult but key passage, and that felt good. And maybe tomorrow...

OK, very imperfect, but the best I can do at the moment. Best, Chris

 

[Rockt]

mOjoey,

I am friends with a Cheney patient who has been 3 times to Panama--she is older and more sick than most of his patients. She recently had the spinal infusion and reported immediate cognitive improvement and now has gone into the expected period of sleeping a lot and lassitude. She has improved markedly but told me that, from her experience and that of others she knows, she would not begin stem cell treatment now--unless the patient was dying. (she more or less was)

She says this because they are tweaking the protocol all the time and no one yet knows whether XMRV will eventually infect the new stem cells. Cheney is testing her and his other stem cell patients rigorously and giving them something (not sure what) that could possibly protect the new cells from XMRV--though this is just a guess on his part--no clinical evidence.

Also, re: the bison cell signalling factors, my doctor is in touch with Cowden and I could ask him whether Cowden has them (and whether he could get them himself) on my next appointment in about 10 days. Otherwise, I think it is very hard to contact Cowden.

Sushi

Sushi, thanks for posting this.

It would be so great if one or some of Dr. Cheney's patients posted out here directly, but there seems to be a lot of secrecy involved. Are they bound by a confidentiality agreement or something?

Anyway, can you expand on this a bit, because I'm not sure where their post-decision dissonance comes from. If they have improved markedly, can do more, socialize, etc., wouldn't they be happy about that? Or are you saying they wished they had waited until the practice was more common place and the risks were more known?

 

[jeffrez]

Hi, Mr. Kite; I note retrospectively that I ducked your difficult quesiton about cognitive impairment. I find this difficult to separate from the general question of energy, but I will take a shot at it, however clumsily and imperfectly. One form that my cognitive impairment took was in the rapid processing of mainly visual input--I quit driving for two or three periods during the 3 1/2 years I have been with CFS, for instance--felt the danger of missing a vital bit of info was too great. But I have been fairly comfortable driving for the last year and a half, though at times conscious of having to focus my attention, and strictly limit things like conversation. Certainly driving is now an easier pleasure--I feel confident and relaxed.

Another test is my desire / ability to get on with my long term project, which involves using German, which I only started to learn 7 years ago, a process brutally interrupted first by what led to heart surgery in late 2004, and then again by CFS late 2006 and on. I did do some work on the project last summer, when I was feeling relatively well, but that pretty much stopped over the winter and became impossible during Jan-March, when I crashed and had real problems. I have just restarted the project, and though I am not back up to speed again, I have made a beginning, and that feels good.

So I think my cognitive functioning is coming back slowly, though it has a way to go still. But it takes energy to tackle texts in what is still a largely foreign language, and that energy still ebbs and flows--I do a bit too much one day feeling good (as I did two days ago) and there follow a couple of lower energy days, when the thought of plunging back into German seems too daunting and gets put off in favour of something else. But a few days ago I did make myself a rough translation of a very difficult but key passage, and that felt good. And maybe tomorrow...

OK, very imperfect, but the best I can do at the moment. Best, Chris

Not at all - appreciate all of it, thanks.

Another thing I find interesting is how much response you appear to be getting without any of the fancy shmancy "cell signaling factors." Molly never took those either, from what I can gather. I'm wondering how much of all that is just a "price of admission" to get on board with Cheney, and probably not even really necessary. It's still to be determined what is actually causing the improvement, but if it is from increased cells, we might be being "oversold" on the "necessity" of these preparation measures, most specifically the CSFs. Relatedly, I know it's a hard thing to gauge, but what shape would you say your gut is in?

I took a little more of the SK today, about 1/3 capsule, I'll see how it goes. I'm also getting nausea from adrenal cortex extract, which as a corticosteroid also of course raises dopamine, so I figured why not try the SK again since I'm a little sick all the time anyway. The SK effects were much worse, but I'm going to see if I can combat them with strong doses of ginger. I don't know of any other anti-nausea things to take offhand - I have an Rx drug from when this first started that is a dopamine antagonist, but that caused anaphylaxis to food. I'd rather not experience that again. If anyone knows of any relatively safe anti-nausea remedies, feel free to PM me. Hopefully I can keep it under control enough to get a few days of SK in at least and see if I notice any of the improvements that you are reporting.

 

[Cloud]

Thanks for the info Chris. I think for now, I'll just watch your progress with the SK, and maybe others will jump in too. I'm ultra sensitive to most substances affecting the Immune system directly, so it seems in my interest to just observe for now. So, I do appreciate you sharing your progress. Meanwhile, I may give the Artesunate a try because I do need to focus on keeping the viruses down that I spent all of 2009 suppressing with big gun meds.

Great information in this thread....thanks everyone!

ps. Raw bison heart? Almost puked on my keyboard. But I can't talk....Like I told Dr Peterson, I would hitchhike naked in a snow storm to his office if that's what it would take.

 

[Chris]

Options...

Hi, Cloud; I am not sure that SK aims directly at the immune system--frankly, I suspect you are much more likely to have a negative reaction to Artesunate than to SK, but of course people differ in their reactivity to stuff. I am back on Artesunate alternate weeks, but am wary of taking it continuously again after my recent experience. It does seem pretty potent stuff.

I would also rather eat a bit of raw bison heart than try your naked hitchhiking in a snow storm, though I admit it would be much less picturesque! Glad you did not have to try it, anyway, and I am not going to eat any raw bison unless someone tells me that it might actually deliver some CSFs to where they would be useful, and I strongly suspect that won't happen. So I hope we will both stay safe from those radical procedures. Best, Chris

 

[glenp]

UBC Research

Research at UBC

http://esciencenews.com/articles/20...ar.key.successful.blood.stem.cell.transplants

 

[Chris]

Glenna, thanks for this--but note that this only applies to donor stem cells, used in particular in cases when the recipients own immune system has been deliberately destroyed to make way for a new one created by donor stem cells--at least this is how I interpret the research. It would not apply to SK or autologous stem cell infusion, I am pretty sure. Best, Chris

 

[Rrrr]

stem cell therapy got rid of HIV -- rrrr
_____

CNN Report - Man appears free of HIV after stem cell transplant

Feb 11, 2009

Man appears free of HIV after stem cell transplant
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/02/11/health.hiv.stemcell/index.html

 

[Chris]

Rrrr-thanks--interesting! But also pretty desperate--will stick with Stem-Kine for the time being, thanks! And if I do get desperate enough to put out the money for a real stem cell infusion, would definitely try for some clinic using autologous cells! But another sign that there is a lot of movement on the stem cell front, even now in North America. Chris

 

[oerganix]

Rrrr-thanks--interesting! But also pretty desperate--will stick with Stem-Kine for the time being, thanks! And if I do get desperate enough to put out the money for a real stem cell infusion, would definitely try for some clinic using autologous cells! But another sign that there is a lot of movement on the stem cell front, even now in North America. Chris

I'd do it right now, if I had the money! Next door in Costa Rica.

 

[Cloud]

Rrrr-thanks--interesting! But also pretty desperate--will stick with Stem-Kine for the time being, thanks! And if I do get desperate enough to put out the money for a real stem cell infusion, would definitely try for some clinic using autologous cells! But another sign that there is a lot of movement on the stem cell front, even now in North America. Chris

Autologous cells will work? I need to study up on this more.

 

[oerganix]

Would you? I'm still wary, not to mention the travel consideration from NY. Are you considering trying the Stem-Kine?

I would. Dr Cheney's patients have experimented enough to make me willing to take the risks. I am 62, have had this for 28 years, ratching downward into more poverty for the 21 years of total disability. I'm willing to take some risks at this point.

If I were about to head to CR, I would seriously consider StemKine, but not right now. I might also look into its components which seem to be available as supplements. As it is, I'm not considering it right now. Too expensive, plus shipping here, makes it beyond my means for an unknown benefit. I don't have 'gut issues' either, and I've got myself to a certain level of functioning by using LDN, CoQ10 and NADH, so I feel like I'm pretty well prepared. Just waiting for my fairy godmother to show up and enhance my bank account sufficiently.

You still doing OK on it?

 

[Hysterical Woman]

Hi Chris/Update?

Hi Chris,

It is very exciting to read about your progress!! Please give us another update when you get a chance.

Take care,

Hysterical

 

[Chris]

Progress???

Hi, sorry to have to tell you this, but am having a bad spell again, after doing well; this last began just a few days ago, and seems to have been triggered by a shopping spell--too much standing and walking, especially standing, I think. I am going to quit Artesunate again, just in case it really is doing bad things to my autonomic nervous system. The symptoms are my old familiar ones--onset of bouts of high BP, chest pain, weakness; the BP can come down very rapidly (as in 30 -40 systolic points in 10 mins) if I meditate, but tends to come back up again. I hate this! It seems not to be pheochromocytoma, so must be autonomic nervous system derangement or Gupta's amygdala kind of thing. But whatever exactly it is it has been making life miserable on and off for over 3 years, and while for periods it seems to go away, it evidently still lurks in the background waiting for me to make a mistake.

I will keep up the Stem-Kine though, since the timing does not suggest any association, and I cannot imagine a channel by which it could be doing this stuff. And sleep has been improving a bit, despite this other stuff. Sorry! Best, Chris