Stem Cells Heal Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)

Traumatic Brain Injury refers to a form of acquired brain injury that occurs when a sudden trauma causes damage to the brain. Traumatic Brain Injury can result when the head suddenly and violently hits an object, or when an object pierces the skull and enters brain tissue.  Symptoms of a Traumatic Brain Injury can be mild, moderate, or severe, depending on the extent of the damage to the brain.

During the acute stage (first 30 days) which occurs after the injury, medical treatment is aimed at life-saving and damage minimizing measures such as judicious use of specific drugs and sometimes surgery. At this stage, the addition of stem cells to the patient’s treatments can be the difference between “having a life of quality” and a “life time of lost functions” with little quality of life! It is during these first few days that all of the difference is made for the rest of that person’s life.  Unfortunately, stem cells are so little used and so little understood by the average doctor or surgeon that this choice is almost never mentioned. If the patient’s family brings up the idea to the attending physician, he or she will deny its use or usefulness due in part to the legal problems with giving such a new therapy in a hospital environment; a clinical world governed by rules and regulations that must be overcome before a new therapy can be used there.

In these situations, “quiet intervention” is the best route to getting desired results. This might include moving the patient to a facility that does not have so many rules and regulations. Each case is unique and should be discussed with Dr. Steenblock and his stem cell expert doctors to help you decide what treatments can be made available and when. For example, a hospital close to you may offer hyperbaric oxygen, intravenous magnesium, etc. that can be used.

Once a Traumatic Brain Injury sufferer is stabilized, they enter the “chronic stage” which typically involves rehabilitation, occupational, language and/or speech therapies (if indicated) and physiotherapy. Most of our patients come to us at this stage rather than the acute stage.

If you have Traumatic Brain Injury, take heart: There is scientific evidence that indicates that hyperbaric oxygen therapy can help offset brain damage during the acute stage, and gradually bring about improvements in Traumatic Brain Injury sufferers in the chronic stage. Over the past three decades Dr. Steenblock has created a comprehensive neuro-rehabilitation program including HBOT that has produced many dramatic turnarounds.

In addition, there is evidence that the use of adult (non-embryonic) stem cells can produce healing in Traumatic Brain Injury. Dr. David Steenblock, in fact, has documented impressive clinical improvements in Traumatic Brain Injury patients treated using their own bone marrow at his clinic in Mission Viejo, California. Not surprisingly, researchers at the University of Texas-Houston Medical School found the potential of using a Traumatic Brain Injury patient’s own bone marrow derived stem cells to treat their condition compelling enough to warrant doing a formal clinical study; they are working on this with Memorial Hermann Children’s hospital (also in Houston).

Dr. Steenblock has also found that the more stem cells of different types that are given, e.g., fat, umbilical cord, bone marrow – and the longer the stay at his clinic to participate in the synergistic holistic approach that uses a variety of techniques to increase growth factors, to dilate the blood vessels and to enhance the engraftment and proliferation of the stem cells the better the overall results will be. He predicates his stem cell based treatment approach, in part, on a simple premise: Namely, the key to getting optimal results using stem cells is to remove things like infections and heavy metals that interfere with their engraftment, growth and proliferation while simultaneously performing a “time warp” on the patient, i.e., duplicating the physical conditions that predominate in newborns such as the presence and levels of growth factors that encourage the growth of stem cells and their activity in terms of both repairing and creating new tissues.

To help pull this off Dr. Steenblock mobilizes and also harvest and infuses stem cells from a patient’s bone marrow or abdominal fat or both. The mobilization of stem cells from the bone marrow is effected by use of certain FDA approved drugs plus an invention of Dr. Steenblock’s own devising called “Stemgevity” (www.stemgevity.com.) The harvesting is done using a simple, almost painless procedure worked out by Dr. Steenblock. In addition, he creates growth factor rich platelet rich plasma (PRP) from a patient’s own blood and mixes this with stem cells prior to administering them (These growth factors activate stem cells and enhance their activity. More on this in the box titled “Platelet Rich Plasma“ further down below) And finally, Dr. Steenblock and his stem cell expert medical team then direct the stem cells to target tissues by the use of special factors that are extracted from a patient’s own blood. These are injected into those areas (such as joints) where the stem cells need to go in order to affect repair and restoration. One of these factors called SDF-1 is safe, simple, and inexpensive and can bring 50 times more stem cells to the injured organ or tissue than is otherwise possible.

As you may know from your own research on the Internet, some physicians claim that bone marrow treatments don’t work as well as fat stem cells while others bumper thump only one kind like bone marrow stem cells because that’s all they can legally harvest and give. However, as fat stem cells tend to be most effective in remediating and healing up only certain diseases, and bone marrow others, it is becomes important that the doctors use “the right tool for the right job.” Going to a clinic that provides only bone marrow extractions or only fat stem cells might result in a patient getting the wrong cells for their condition.

Also, many “Stem Cell Doctors” have little experience with using more than a few adult (non-embryonic) stem cell types to treat people; and most of these have only treated people within a narrow age range who are saddled with a limited number of medical conditions (The opposite of what their websites claim.)

Genuine stem cell doctors need to possess a wealth of experience and access to a stem cell lab in order to continuously test their patient’s stem cell numbers and viability, especially when these are so easily improved by the very methods the team is using to prepare and process them. This lab needs a flow cytometer at the very least in order to measure the actual types and viability of your stem cells prior to their administration especially in those patients who are older than 40 and have chronic health problems.

Consider this too: Fat stem cells are becoming increasingly popular since they appear to be a great way to tackle many diseases. “Let’s do some liposuction to remove some tummy fat and make that into a stem cell treatment to remedy your problems” is a familiar refrain at many clinics today. But truth-be-told, fat stem cells are killed during the process of extracting the fat they reside in using traditional liposuction methods. This is why Dr. Steenblock and his team use a “miniliposuction” method to harvest fat, which yields large numbers of healthy stem cells.

When fat is removed and given back the same day it is harvested, the quantity that can be extracted becomes of critical importance since the number of stem cells that can be obtained is directly proportionate to the amount of fat that the doctors can safely remove. This imposes severe limitations on the attending physician(s) when it comes to patients who are very thin by nature or choice or due to their disease/condition, since they (the doctors) can only obtain a small amount of fat and thus wind up with a small number of stem cells to treat with. In this situation, Dr. Steenblock often elects to remove bone marrow from a patient’s hip or leg and give stem cells from this to the patient along with the fat derived stem cells. And in some instances, Dr. Steenblock and his doctors refers patients to their Mexican colleagues for administration of pure umbilical cord stem cells in order to optimize healing.

Again, the more different types of stem cells, e.g. bone marrow, fat, umbilical cord, etc. a patient gets the better their overall results will be!

Dr. Steenblock’s comprehensive stem cell-based approach to Traumatic Brain Injury is geared to (1) prepare a patient’s body to respond vigorously to injected stem cells; (2) identify and deal with dietary, lifestyle and other factors that tend to complicate or exacerbate Traumatic Brain Injury; and (3) remove impediments that tend to compromise patient responses to stem cells as well as stem cell activity in the body. Among the tools and methods which Dr. Steenblock utilizes:

(1) Placing Traumatic Brain Injury patients on a diet and supplements specific to their condition.

(2) Chelation therapy (if indicated) to remove toxic heavy metals from the patient’s tissues and organs.

(3) Use of stem cell mobilizers such as all-natural Stemgevity™ and FDA approved stem cell mobilization drugs such as Neupogen® (Filgrastim).

(3) Creation of individualized regimens that include use of leading edge FDA approved stem cell mobilizing devices such as Intermittent Hypoxia Therapy, Periodic Acceleration Therapy, Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy, External counterpulsation and more. You can read more about these on www.strokedoctor.com, and also in the November-December 2010 issue of Dr. Steenblock’s Clinic newsletter which you can readily access by going to http://stemcell.md/newsletters/nov2010.pdf (Go to page 2, the article titled “How Dr. Steenblock Can Help You Turn the Tables on Aging & Chronic Disease”)

How is a Bone Marrow Transplant Done?

Typically, Dr. Steenblock harvests health building bone marrow from either a patient’s tibia (thick shin bone) or the iliac crest (hip bone). To do this he first deadens the area using a local anesthetic and then inserts a thin-needle attached to a large syringe. He then draws the bone marrow up into the syringe. Most patients report that they are comfortable and relaxed during the collection process.

The entire bone marrow harvesting and treatment process typically takes only a few hours.

Administering the stem cells

The collected stem cells are typically re-infused by what is called a “lumbar puncture.”  How does this work? In-a-word a syringe containing the patient’s stem cell rich bone marrow that is capped by a thin needle is carefully inserted into the spinal canal low in the lower back. Once in place a small amount of the fluid (Cerebral Spinal Fluid) is drawn up in a syringe and mixed with the bone marrow and this is then injected back into the CSF.

As CSF circulates in and around the brain it carries these new regenerative stem cells with it, typically taking between 6-7 hours to complete a single cycle.

Costs: The longer a patient stays at Dr. Steenblock’s Clinic the better the outcome. One month is better that one week and two months is better than one. This allows time for daily treatments using all Dr. Steenblock’s therapies which are aimed at getting and keeping the levels of the stem cells in the blood very high, as well as to  continuously upregulate the production of various brain growth factors such as VEGF. Costs range from:

$4K USD for a simple bone marrow transplant

$6 K USD for a stem cell rich fat tissue transplant

$10K USD for a combination of bone marrow and fat stem cell transplants (which includes one week of free ancillary treatments)

$12K USD for bone or fat culturing and lumbar puncture (intrathecal) injection in Mexico; $20K USD for one injection weekly for 4 straight weeks; $25K USD for bone marrow & fat tissue harvesting, isolation and culturing of the stem cells, stem cell mobilizing & activating procedures and ancillary treatments for one month (For two months with weekly injections the price jumps to $45K USD.)

To learn more call Toll Free at 1-800-300-1063