234 replies to this topic

[resveratrol_guy]

This may be apples/oranges but I've had stem cell treatments for torn Achilles tendons.   I tore both during a 50 mile race.  One heel had successful  prolotherapy  treatment.  The other had it as well but it never healed so the next step was stem cells.  As the OP mentioned, marrow is extracted from the hip.  Then it was injected into the Achilles.   I had the treatment nine weeks ago.  It seems to be healing the tendon.  At its worst the insertion on the heel was larger than a chicken egg, not allowing me to wear shoes and too painful for walking, much less running.   The swelling is 90% gone in the insertion and I'm back to running.  

 

BTW, marrow extraction was horrifically painful.  Three nurses had to hold me down while marrow was being sucked out of my hip bone.  In comparison,  injecting the marrow into several spots along the heel/tendon was nothing even though for each injection the needle had to hit bone. 

 

kpo

 

Thanks for this report. So it's quite clear to me at this point that recent innovations in bone marrow mining (finer needles, improved marrow miners, etc.) have mitigated the pain to well within manageable limits, given appropriate local anaesthetic. But not all stem cell centers use these improved techniques, hence your unfortunate experience.

 

Now as to the success of your treatment, it looks like this is yet another case of bone marrow (in this case, whole bone marrow) mediating connective tissue repair. That said, your case is distinctly different than mine in that the target of the therapy is not sufficiently accessible from the circulatory system, hence the need to perform direct localized injections. This resulted in a huge bone marrow bolus which definitely should not have occurred, had it instead been dripped into circulation intravenously.

 

Care to say where you got the therapy, cost, or anything else about your specific situation?  For that matter, anyone else is invited to post their stem cell experience in this thread, especially if it involves quantitative data or other useful tidbits like the name of the center, the cost, weird side effects, etc. Because after all, I'm not the only guinea pig

[kaypeeoh]

I had it at Docere clinics in Park City, Utah.   $500 for  prolotherapy and $1000 for the stem cells treatment. 

 

kpo 

[resveratrol_guy]

So I think an update is in order.

 

First of all, biohackers please take note of the recent news article here that says that astrocytes convert themselves into ordinary neurons in order to repair damage after a stroke: "The scientists could also identify the signalling mechanism that regulates the conversion of the astrocytes to nerve cells..." Perhaps the astrocytes, in turn, are affected by the secretions of nearby stem cells in response to local damage. In any event, this opens up a whole new line of therapeutic design for stroke and dementia generally, just waiting for the right team to find it.

 

So as to my own case, it looks like you're in for a 2-for-the-price-of-1 deal: a friend of mine has decided to go through similar therapy but at a different center. Since their case is more urgent than my own, I've paused in order to create a video series following them through the process. Current expectation for their therapy is the end of this month, or early November. Shortly after that, I will proceed with my personal therapy. Videos will be posted in a burst soon after their therapy is complete. Then I'll also provide data here following the completion of my own version. For many good reasons, no data will be released until the first therapy session is done. Otherwise I will make every effort to expedite data release; additionally, I'll try to post brief notes on progress as warranted.

 

[sthira]

Thanks, Resveratrol guy, I'll be looking forward to reading your reports and seeing your video.

[resveratrol_guy]

Sure, sthira, first video is already in the queue.

 

Now, let this be a lesson to those of you in comparable situations: do not wait until you are desperate:

 

I've been assisting my friend for over a week now. One thing that we've definitely proven at this point is that you cannot just say "take my cash and give me stem cells" in the USA. More tests have been required as a prerequisite. So we need to go to this doctor for a prescription for that test, and that doctor for a prescription for the blood test which is a prerequisite to the other test because the first doctor cannot write that sort of prescription, blah blah blah. Then of course every time you show up and say "I want a test", you need to pay another consultation fee, when the "consultation" is really just asking the doctor to write "patient needs test X" on a piece of paper.

 

But life could be worse. At least, the tests may be informative as to the diagnosis, and at least in theory could reveal that nothing more than a simple course of antibiotics or whatever will suffice to cure my friend's evolving dementia (yeah, right...).

 

So for now, we're gritting our teeth and wading through the bureaucracy.

 

In the meantime, I can offer those in a similar situation a bit more in the way of useful self-therapy for mental acuity: cheddar (especially aged) cheese. No, I'm serious. This stuff is rich in spermidine (and comes with a modest amount of vitamin K2). Four days ago, I discovered spermidine here on Longecity. I decided to try it out for myself. The thing is, on account of my digestive dysfunction, I've had next to zero cheese for over a year, despite having been a real connoisseur prior to my stroke-or-TIA-or-whatever. But after about 9 months on pantoprazole (proton pump inhibitor to reduce stomach acid), 3 months on sertraline (to reduce unjustified anxiety and thus excess stomach acid), and 2 months on carbon 60 olive oil (minus the past week due to an inventory shortfall), my stomach inflammation (confirmed via endoscopy just before starting pantoprazole) is now barely perceptible (as compared to being pinned to the floor in pain hours after eating a heaping tablespoon of butter last December -- twice). So now, with (perhaps unnecessary) help from digestive enzymes, I was able to handle it just fine. I melted it and mixed it with steamed bitter gourd, which is associated with some impressive health benefits (probably justifiably so, judging by how bitter and unappetizing it tastes -- just don't eat the toxic seeds).

 

I ate it, or rather, forced it down my throat, and nothing happened. At least not for a few hours. Then I started getting this weird feeling of low inflammation and, for lack of a better expression, normalcy. I haven't felt this "here" since between the aforementioned cerebral catastrophe, despite my other improvements  as documented by Lumosity. But I didn't post anything here because I knew that, like most all nootropics, this was just an effect which would not likely last into the night and could well have been all placebo. Yet, persist it did. So the next day, I had another bitter gourd with more melted sharp cheddar cheese. I continued to feel normal (i.e. highly abnormal). Then yesterday I ran out of bitter gourd. So I just mixed a similar amount of melted cheddar cheese with a random pile of steamed veggies, and ate it. I was still feeling normal, constantly all day, with no interruptions. Today, I did the same. I'm still feeling normal. Perhaps it will all grind to a halt tomorrow and I'll never be able to reproduce this rich cognition of the world. Because, frankly, it's hard to believe that I was "missing" cheddar cheese. Or maybe it's an mTOR inhibitor in the bitter gourd with really long half life. I think it's time for a trip to the grocery store for a refill. For the record, I've been "dosing" about 90 g/d of cheddar. And yeah, I ate the whole freakin' footlong bitter gourd each time. It's an acquired taste, to put it mildly.

 

So all this is to say, to which I've previously alluded, that I must treat my own prospective therapy as prospective enhancement. It just makes me very happy to have the chance to help someone caught in a very similar disaster. Fingers crossed. We are proceeding as rapidly as possible under the circumstances. Tomorrow, my friend is off to the neurologist. Not for therapy (after all, dementia is "incurable" and "hopeless") but just for another semirelevant test on the way to stem cell therapy.

 

[resveratrol_guy]

First of all, if you think spinal injuries are permanent, then you obviously haven't read this BBC news article about Dr. Pawel Tabakow and team.

 

Update: Tests are proceeding. With blood tests and an MRI done, next up is a PET scan, which may allow us to reproduce the Indian bone marrow therapy study linked in my original post, at least in some capacity. (Vascular dementia par se is not suspected, but there is ample evidence for vascular inflammation.) My friend agrees that a followup PET in another year or so would have high personal and social value, so hopefully we can provide that in the future. In any event, I'll try to post some images if I'm able to extract them. And definitely written reports will be shared in an upcoming video. Neurologist was inconclusive pending blood and PET results. Stem cell therapy is still objective #1 for both of us, pending any unexpected revelation which might indicate otherwise.

 

Edited by resveratrol_guy, 21 October 2014 - 05:17 AM.

[resveratrol_guy]

My friend's PET scan is done. I've been asked to withhold it until after therapy. However, if you're radiologically educated, my friend would probably be interested in sharing it with you. As to data quality, it's quite a gem. After horrendous frustrations with several different viewing software packages, I finally managed to get screen captures of 49 horizontal brain slices, with none missing in between. I then compiled them into a 10-color 7x7 tiling comprised of about 13 megapixels in total -- much sharper than in the Indian study. All intermediate image transformations were done losslessly with respect to the original image renditions in the viewer, so no pixels have been dropped and no colors have been modified (PNG format). The image has already been uploaded for safekeeping, and will be released as soon as I get permission. It's basically a "heat map" of radiotagged glucose acting as a proxy for neurological metabolism, as I understand it. Obviously Google can explain better, so I don't want to run OT with this.

 

I managed to extract the MRI frames as well, although I think in this case they're less informative, and do not contain any obvious catastrophic pathology, per the MRI report and a neurologist. But if there's interest I'll try to post them.

 

I should have more to say in a few days. Other test results are pending.

 

[sthira]

First of all, if you think spinal injuries are permanent, then you obviously haven't read this BBC news article about Dr. Pawel Tabakow and team.

Beautiful story. And from the article:

"None of those involved in the research want to profit from it.

"Prof Geoff Raisman said: 'It would be my proudest boast if I could say that no patient had had to pay one penny for any of the information we have found.'"

[resveratrol_guy]

I agree, sthira. This field is moving too quickly to keep up with and the therapists and patients with the courage to push the envelope deserve our gratitude. Speaking of which, my friend has given me permission to release their info on condition of anonymity, on account of the social value which it might have going forward. So let's get started. I'll separate into different posts for readability.

 

First off, here's the PET scan. (Click the link, then once the image loads, click on it to get full resolution.) You can see the amygdalas hotly illuminated in the center image. For the record, this is probably due to my friend's urgency to urinate during the scan, on account of drinking too much water. As you can see, the report considers other features to be of more interest, in particular, parietal hypoperfusion. My gut feeling from all the data thus far, and my friend's behavior and commentary, is that we're looking at early Lewy body dementia associated with, if not caused by, age-related vascular dysfunction (not necessarily vasculitis, par se).

 

https://imagizer.ima...9544/fZm92o.png

 

Here's the PET report:

 

10/22/2014

 

INDICATIONS:

 

Memory loss.

 

DOSE:

 

11.9 mCi F-18 fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG).

 

TECHNIQUE:

 

IV line was started 10 minutes before the injection. Blood glucose at the time of injection was 46 mg/dl. The patient was injected in an environmentally controlled room with low level lighting and ambient noise. At least 45 minutes after injection, PET/CT was performed on an orthosilicate fixed-ring PET/CT scanner with time-of-flight electronics and reconstruction. The attentuation-corrected dataset was reviewed along with low-dose CT obtained for scatter and transmission correction.

 

COMPARISON:

 

None.

 

BIODISTRIBUTION FINDINGS:

 

Normal.

 

SUPRATENTORIAL FINDINGS:

 

There is symmetric uptake between the left and right hemispheres. There is symmetric uptake in the basal ganglia and striatum. Subtle decreased activity is identified along the parietal convexities bilaterally. Normal activity is identified in the cingulate gyrus. No other areas of regional hyper- or hypometabolism are seen.

 

POSTERIOR FOSSA FINDINGS:

 

Homogeneous uptake in the cerebellar hemispheres and brainstem.

 

EXTRACRANIAL FINDINGS:

 

No abnormal areas of hypermetabolism seen in the orbits, calvarium, or visualized portions of the upper neck.

 

IMPRESSION:

 

Subtle symmetric hypoperfusion identified in the parietal convexities. Early Alzheimer's cannot be excluded however the scan should not be considered diagnostic.

 

Edited by resveratrol_guy, 24 October 2014 - 09:36 PM.

[resveratrol_guy]

Blood tests compiled from 2 different days this past week, plus fasting glucose from the PET report. Highlights: High TSH (unrelated -- we know why), LDL, and HbA1c. Borderline eGFR.

 

Bilirubin total 0.5

Alkaline phosphatase 85

AST 16

ALT 9

TSH 3.32

Westergren 1

White blood cells 5.5

Red blood cells 4.65

Hemoglobin 13.8

Hematocrit 42.5

MCV 91.6

MCH 29.8

MCHC 32.5

RDW 14.2

Platelets 198

Iron total 64

Iron binding capacity 326

Iron % saturation 20

B12 632 then 596 (2 tests a few days apart)

Cholesterol total 223

HDL 47

LDL 153

NonHDL 176

Triglycerides 114

Random glucose 99

Fasting glucose 46 (Really low -- bad data? On the day of the PET scan, after 24 hours near-zero carbs, and at least 6 hours fasting beforehand.)

BUN 18

Creatinine 1.0

eGFR 63

Sodium 142

Potassium 4.2

Chloride 106

CO2 24

Calcium 9.7

Protein 7.4

Albumin 4.2

Globulin 3.2

Folate serum > 24.0

HbA1c 5.9

T4 free 1.2

Methylmalonic acid 98

Immunofixation serum: no monoclonal protein found

TSH 6.98

 

Edited by resveratrol_guy, 24 October 2014 - 09:11 PM.

[resveratrol_guy]

MRI report, Impression only. I haven't bothered to extract the MRI images. Will post other tests when possible.

 

1. No subacute infarction.

2. No evidence of demyelinating disease.

3. Nonspecific mild white matter disease. [In the body of the report, the detail says: "A few scattered small white matter hyperintensities in the frontal and parietal white matter are nonspecific and could be seen with minimal small vessel ischemic disease or complex migraine headaches. Vasculitis is not suspected. Old inflammatory disease is also considered unlikely."]

4. 6 mm left parasellar hypointensity. Probable well-pneumatized left anterior clinoid process.

 

Edited by resveratrol_guy, 24 October 2014 - 09:14 PM.

[Flex]

MRI report, Impression only. I haven't bothered to extract the MRI images. Will post other tests when possible.

 

1. No subacute infarction.

2. No evidence of demyelinating disease.

3. Nonspecific mild white matter disease. [In the body of the report, the detail says: "A few scattered small white matter hyperintensities in the frontal and parietal white matter are nonspecific and could be seen with minimal small vessel ischemic disease or complex migraine headaches. Vasculitis is not suspected. Old inflammatory disease is also considered unlikely."]

4. 6 mm left parasellar hypointensity. Probable well-pneumatized left anterior clinoid process.

 

Good that its not at least something worser than this.

 

Here is something interresting. Hope that helps somehow

 

https://www.reddit.c...ty_to_generate/

A latent neurogenic program in astrocytes regulated by Notch signaling in the mouse

http://www.sciencema...06/237.abstract
 

[resveratrol_guy]

I've been permitted to release nocturnal oximetry. Unfortuantely, the device won't connect to my computer, so I had to manually peruse the SpO2 data on the device itself. Of note, I don't see the downspikes into the mid-80s that I saw 2 nights ago. This might be luck, or might be due to the c60oo that my friend only started consuming about a week ago starting to settle in and lower oxygen requirements. This was a 2-hour sample; that was a 3-hour sample with multiple downspikes. Both samples show a tendency to sit in the low 90s, which is subpar IMO. This obviously needs to be addressed for many reasons, not the least of which being the prospective efficacy of stem cell therapy. Fortunately, plenty of hardware exists for treating such problems.

 

My friend has completed all tests, and more, required by the stem cell center. We are both enthused to proceed as rapidly as possible, given that further tests seem unlikely to provide much more in the way of a diagnosis. By virtue of all of the foregoing evidence, my primary hypothesis is that this is a case of cerebrovascular dysfunction threatening to evolve into Lewy body dementia, particularly in the left parietal lobe, but somewhat in the right as well.

 

@ Flex: Yes, the astrocyte-neuron transmutation discover is quite exciting. Perhaps the process is reversible, in which case we might extend mental healthspan by using these complentary populations to supplement one another as needed. According to the second link, "Blocking Notch signaling triggers astrocytes in the striatum and the medial cortex to enter a neurogenic program, even in the absence of stroke, resulting in 850 ± 210 (mean ± SEM) new neurons in a mouse striatum." That's not many additional neurons, even for a mouse, but it's better than nothing. I suppose the hope is that I can just swallow a Notch inhibitor, and upregulate neurogenesis (but hippocampal neurons might be more useful). More importantly, I wonder if the number of neurons is really important here, i.e. is Notch just one of the "management consultants" that stem cells use to repair damaged neural networks, more by getting them repaired and organized, than by introducing new neurons? I have no idea but I certainly hope this research continues, so thanks for sharing.

 

Edited by resveratrol_guy, 26 October 2014 - 05:38 AM.

[resveratrol_guy]

Therapy has been fully paid and scheduled! Now that we have so much more data, we plan to redo the first video just before therapy begins. (I found that the sound was also problematic on the original video.)

 

My friend is doing somewhat better, in the sense of having better olfactory function and spatial awareness, and pointed out a few hazardous obstacles in our walking path. I would ascribe this to a teaspoon/day c60oo and 400mg/day of Longvida curcumin (Curcubrain from Now Foods), as nothing else has changed of significance. High doses (2+ grams/day) of resveratrol for a week might also have helped.

 

Still, the mental issues persist. We will discuss alll this in the redone video.

 

I should be able to release my friend's videos, pre and post, by the end of November. At least, we're finally on the therapy path. Then it's time for my own therapy, which I might tweak based on my friend's experience.

 

Edited by resveratrol_guy, 28 October 2014 - 02:37 PM.

[resveratrol_guy]

My friend tested positive for lyme disease! This was the last pending blood test result that we've been waiting for. (I had suggested taking the test simply to rule out remote possibilities to explain the symptoms.)

 

Obviously, I'm hoping that it's Lyme because the prognosis would be quite good if antibiotics could be combined with stem cell therapy. But as I've told my friend, my honest expectation is that this is a false positive. Wiki suggests that this may happen due to CMV or HSV infection, which are suspected of association with dementia, and in any event are much more common than lyme. Furthermore, test has a false positive rate of 1-3%. (The false negative rate is quite atrocious, especially in the early stages.) Also, there is not much joint pain in evidence, although my friend does have mobility problems related to a combination of fatigue and mild motor dysfunction. OTOH, certainly, the cerebral ischemia would be consistent with (but not diagnostic of) lyme. At the end of the day, lyme or not, the brain damage is still real and needs to be fixed somehow.

 

The next step, hopefully, is to send blood samples to one of the top private labs in the USA, known specifically for lyme expertise. I will reveal the name of the lab after we obtain the results, for the benefit of anyone else who suspects the disease.

 

The only cases I'm aware of where antibiotics and (embryonic?) stem cell therapy were used to treat lyme are this one about Kyla Puklus and this one about Amy Scher. Although the accounts are infested with a new-agy vibe, it may still be the case that the therapy combination was actually more effective than antibiotics alone.

 

Finally, say what you will about Dr. Mercola, but he and his partner Erin Elizabeth are very health-savvy people. Erin contracted lyme disease and has since been cured. She wrote an ebook about it here.

 

Edited by resveratrol_guy, 29 October 2014 - 04:12 PM.

[resveratrol_guy]

Just to clarify, my friend's "mobility" problems amounts to having an inability to walk heel-to-toe in a straight line, which is a standard part of neurological testing. Apparently 3 separate lyme tests (of which there are many varieties) came back positive, but some others did not. Will update when further data arrives.

[resveratrol_guy]

Lyme test results below. If you have a statistically supported opinion on what the results mean, please speak up. To me, it looks unconvincing, as though we've picked up antibodies with similar molecular weight but for some other pathogen. Obviously this needs followup with an infectious disease specialist. My friend is pursuing that, but in any event the stem cell therapy date remains unchanged.

 

Lyme disaese ab iGg blot negative
18 kda iGg band reactive
23 kda iGg band nonreactive
28 kda iGg band nonreactive
30 kda iGg band nonreactive
39 kda iGg band nonreactive
41 kda iGg band reactive
45 kda iGg band nonreactive
58 kda iGg band nonreactive
66 kda iGg band nonreactive
93 kda iGg band reactive
Lyme ab iGm blot nonreactive
23 kd iGm band reactive
39 kd iGm band nonreactive
41 kd iGm band nonreactive
 

Edited by resveratrol_guy, 29 October 2014 - 09:35 PM.

[niner]

Here's a 1992 paper on Lyme serology that may address some of this.  In a couple cases, the bands you report and the ones talked about in the paper differ by one kdal.  I don't know what to make of that, but chalk it up to improved assays, at least tentatively.  Many of these bands show up in normal controls, but all of them show up at higher frequency in Lyme patients.  I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that these bands are due to a pathogen necessarily.  I think it would be a good idea to have a Lyme-literate person go over the test results with you.  My suspicion is that there isn't enough signal there to lead to a Lyme diagnosis, but I'm not an expert in it.

 

BTW, is there somewhere where you introduced your friend's situation?  I read the whole thread (unless I missed something) but never saw it, if it's there.

[resveratrol_guy]

Here's a 1992 paper on Lyme serology that may address some of this.  In a couple cases, the bands you report and the ones talked about in the paper differ by one kdal.  I don't know what to make of that, but chalk it up to improved assays, at least tentatively.  Many of these bands show up in normal controls, but all of them show up at higher frequency in Lyme patients.  I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that these bands are due to a pathogen necessarily.  I think it would be a good idea to have a Lyme-literate person go over the test results with you.  My suspicion is that there isn't enough signal there to lead to a Lyme diagnosis, but I'm not an expert in it.

 

BTW, is there somewhere where you introduced your friend's situation?  I read the whole thread (unless I missed something) but never saw it, if it's there.

 

Thanks, niner. First of all, I verified the test names with the original lab result paper, and the kilodaltons and reactivities are all correct. And now that I have that paper, I can add the following text from it:

 

"As per CDC criteria, a Lyme disease IgG [sorry about wrong capitalization above] Immunoblot must show reactivity to at least 5 of 10 specific borrelial proteins to be considered positive; similarly, a positive Lyme disease IgM immunoblot requires reactivity to 2 of 3 specific borrelial proteins. Although considered negative, IgG reactivity to fewer specific borrelial proteins or IgM reactivity to only 1 protein may indicate recent B. burgdorferi infection and warrant testing of a later sample. A positive IgM but negative IgG result obtained more than a month after onset of symptoms likely represents a false positive IgM result rather than acute Lyme disease. In rare instances, Lyme disease immunoblot reactivity may represent antibodies induced by exposure to other spirochetes."

 

And certainly you're correct: the reactive bands might not even be due to pathogenic proteins, let alone borrelia proteins. As to your recommendation, though, we have booked an appointment with an infectious disease specialist out of an abundance of caution.

 

As to my friend's situation, the symptoms have been evolving for around a year. It looks like early Lewy body dementia (short term memory loss with parietal but not prefrontal hypoperfusion, oscillating day-vs-day mental acuity, and frequent episodes of illogical paranoia and one hallucination several months ago). Were it Lyme, I would expect one of the AB tests to be positive by now. In any event, the case history will be thoroughly discussed in the first video.

Edited by resveratrol_guy, 30 October 2014 - 02:36 PM.

[resveratrol_guy]

So my friend started GCSF (filgrastim) the day before yesterday @ 200ug (should have been 300ug, but a third squirted out of the needle by mistake). Then last night, another 300ug were administered. Self-administration was to the upper arm (intramuscular -- not intravenous) in both cases. I supervised both events for safety's sake. Last night, my friend mentioned that Stephen Colbert suddenly seemed like a sophisticated comedian, as opposed to a serious news anchor. (Watching the exact same Colbert video a day or 2 or 3 apart, separated by GCSF as the only remarkable event resulted in this difference. I trumped it up to placebo and went home.)

 

Then just now I called my friend for a checkin. Reported changes are as follows. All were volunteered; none were in response to specific questions apart from "what's different?":

 

1. Better balance and strength, in particular, not having to lean a hand against the wall to sit down properly.

 

2. Prior to the first injection, my friend had forgotten the location of the GCSF itself, which I had only minutes ago pointed out, sitting under blueice packs in the fridge. Now, my friend reports a better sense of where things have been placed. (Prior to dementia, object location skills were excellent, per self-report.)

 

3. More relaxed than any time in recollection since this all started last year, despite watching an unnerving/stressful TV show this morning. On the phone, my friend sounded like a different person. I don't know how else to explain this. The alternation has been between exasperation and panic, pretty much every other day. But this morning, I was talking to someone who did not show any signs of angst or obvious confusion/paranoia, and seemed to understand irony/humor like anyone else.

 

4. Despite this, my friend said that cognition was a bit worse. The reason for this deduction was explained as exchanging the relative time sequence of 2 future appointments, one of which was also wrong by one day. I don't know if this is so bad, considering that during a mini mental state (MMSE) test a couple weeks ago, my friend knew only the month and not the date, and grossly mispronounced the name of the city, despite it having been mentioned by me probably tens of times prior to that. For the record, the doctor had rated the MMSE score as 30; in my view, it was less due to the aforementioned faults (and maybe less still if we're supposed to subtract for wobbling heel-to-toe walking, not sure).

 

I confirmed clearly 3 separate times today that my friend has only had a single capsule of Longvida lipidated curcumin 400mg, ever. (My friend has decided not to take it for the moment, on account of a theoretical inhibition of stem cell activity by magnesium stearate filler. I disagree, but it's not my decision.) So I don't think this is explained by Longvida.

 

c60oo has been taken for almost 2 weeks, so it may be that.

 

Or, perhaps it's the GCSF. Surely, this is not evidence of neovascularization. But it might be evidence of CD34+ mobilization: the cells are now circulating in higher numbers, secreting antiinflammatory factors in response to inflammatory cytokines which they observe as they pass within proximity of endothelial inflammation (or something like that, no doubt some of you could explain better).

 

In any event, something is changing here. After the first dose, my friend had complained that it didn't seem to have done anything at all. I explained that mobilization was a several-day process, and had no reason to believe that the effects would be perceptible short term, apart from anecdotes about immediate benefits of bone marrow injections, likely due to antiiflammatory action -- if anything beyond placebo, at all. I was not expecting to see anything so soon. Maybe this is synergy between c60oo and GCSF that would not have happened with either in isolation -- something along the lines of niner's stem cell differentiation rescue theory. I don't know. Hopefully we'll have more objective data in the future.

 

Edited by resveratrol_guy, 01 November 2014 - 04:35 PM.

[resveratrol_guy]

20 Mpixels of my friend's MRI data is visible here. After it loads, you can click on the image itself to get a full zoom. Left column is T1 axial without contrast; right column is the same with contrast. 1.5 tesla. No pixels were modified in the process of extracting from the MRI viewer software, apart from cropping and tiling to form this composite image.

 

I'm not thrilled with random free third-party image hosting services, so if you can back up the PET and MRI scans on a different perma-server, then please post direct image links here, but DO NOT post images or thumbnails in this thread, per my friend's request.

 

As you can see, the extent of small stroke damage in the left pareital and prefrontal lobes is minimal. Atrophy doesn't seem to be a significant factor, either. Just the same, the small strokes are in my view an indicator of underlying vascular pathology which, left untreated, would continue to deteriorate, and could explain my friend's spatial fuzziness from the standpoint of parietal hypoperfusion (likely due to some atherosclerosis). Vitamin K2-MK7 (90 ug) is on order for exactly this reason.

 

But most consistent with the symptoms is the centimeter-or-so feature just slightly left of center of the back of the skull, visible starting around the 10th row (hypointense without contrast and hyperintense with). My friend has been complaining frequently about exactly this spot, saying that it has felt constantly inflamed for the past year since this started, to varying extents. I'm surpirsed that I see no mention of it in the MRI impression. So perhaps it's just an anatomical feature of no consequence. But I think not, as explained in the following additional changes since GCSF initiation:

 

1. Inflammation at the posterior of the brain has gone away. This would be consistent with vascular damage attracting the attention of newly mobilized stem cells, which have "docked" and started secreting antiinflammatories. In any case, it's completely out-of-band from a statistical perspective, especially in light of the bias toward further damage in the absence of therapy.

 

2. Heel-to-toe walking is now (barely) functional over a distance of 5m.

 

3. Sensation in the right foot, which had been tingly, is now similar to the left, although both feet remain subpar in this regard.

 

4. My friend is more conversant and animated, with more normal eye contact and facial expressions. I saw this myself today. It could be explained by lower cerebral inflammation, entirely in the absence of neovascularization. No idea how to measure it, though.

 

5. Personal hygiene and grooming have visibly improved (roughly, from an elderly bum on the street to a typical senior citizen). Yesterday was the first day that I noticed my friend's kitchen counter being tidy.

 

6. The brain now feels "firmer" as opposed to increasingly "soft" by the day. It's hard for me to imagine what this means, but it's certainly the first time I've ever heard of the softness trend reversing. The only thing I can add is that this "firmness" feeling is somehow unprecedented in the sense that it reportedly never occurred before, so it's not the sort of sane or alert feeling that we might normally associate with mental health. It's not painful, but it's just "weird". Sorry I can't be more objective, having no way to experience this first hand.

 

Autologous bone marrow transplantation is still planned as previously scheduled.

 

Edited by resveratrol_guy, 02 November 2014 - 07:32 PM.

[resveratrol_guy]

A few further notes from my friend, after 1x200ug plus 4x300ug GCSF over 5 days:

 

1. Sensation in the right foot is oscillatory, but is equal to the left foot for hours at a time. This kind of looks like repair superimposed upon normal daily swings in systemic and especially cerebrovascular inflammation. (I suspect that the foot sensation issue is in the brain rather than the foot, but this is open to debate.)

 

2. Tinnitus was low intensity this morning for over 2 hours since waking up, and still is that way. My friend says that at no time in the past year has remission persisted for so long; only 10-minute bursts of quiescence were experienced after waking on some occasions. In addition to GCSF, yesterday's unusual dosages included 800 mg of olive leaf pills and about 2 level teaspoons each of Hershey unsweetened cocoa powder and tumeric (not of the Longvida variety), mixed together with water. Dinner consisted of asparagus with garlic.

 

3. Panic remains subdued vs. prior to GCSF, despite ongoing rational concerns about the prognosis.

 

4. Cerebral inflammation is low, and the postcortical inflammation in particular is minimal-to-nonexistent, as previously reported. This is in contrast to daily complaints about head pains prior to GCSF.

 

[resveratrol_guy]

A few notes, while they're still fresh in my mind:

 

1. Heel-to-toe walking has become progressively more stable since the neurologist visit, progressing from utter imbalance at that time, to something that looks like tightrope walking today. I should probably get this on video while the dysfunction is still sufficiently evident. I'll also try to get a scan of the neurologist's notes. (I was not present, but was told that he said something to the effect of "don't worry about it" after the complete balance failure, and proceeded with other tests.)

 

2. Tinnitus has been more pronounced in loud environments, and quieter in quiet environments. This is, by definition, the opposite of how tinnitus evolves into an annoyance. This suggests that the acoustic neural networks are trying to remember how they're supposed to respond to sound, but this is just my hypothesis.

 

3. I observed more "get-up-and-go" as opposed to an elderly pace of sitting up, opening doors, etc.

 

4. Self-reported cognition level is actually worse, described as "drunkenness". I don't see it from my perspective, and the most recent heel-to-toe test was performed while in this state, but that's the report. We were debating whether this might indicate increased awareness of the problem, or negative progression despite the otherwise good results.

 

5. Head and body inflammation is remarkably low relative to the past year.

 

6. Chocolate bar eaten today, but not tumeric. My friend intends to return to the disgusting tumeric/cacao drink tomorrow.

 

7. My friend has agreed in principle to have another PET scan some time after 6 months, for public benefit and despite being aware of the radiation hazard, if it can be obtained despite pharmocracy (which I think really ought to be a word).

 

8. Thyroid dysfunction (see foregoing abberant TSH blood test) has been connected to tinnitus, according to Wiki. We plan to attack this with artificial hormone tweaks in order to maximize the extent of tinnitus remission.

 

9. Improvements in conversational, postural, and facial expression competence have persisted.

 

10. Lifelong challenges with basic mental arithmetic persist without change.

 

[resveratrol_guy]

While my friend is awaiting therapy day, I think a personal update is in order.

 

Very preliminarily, I have found that force-feeding myself 100g/d dark (70% plus) chocolate combined with 3mg/d c60oo and my aforementioned supplement regimen (especially shiitake/maitake extract) seems to improve both olfactory function and my ability to solve Pet Detective (the travelling salesman problem) on Lumosity. This is despite more superficial sleep. Most likely both effects have resulted from cacao. The jitters and especially the postchocolate nausea and depression are much less relative to before c60oo. It's weird feeling somewhat more tired from lack of sleep, yet having overall better mental function. I'm tempted to try Nuvigil, but not yet.

 

I'm also eating a gutted, steamed bitter gourd daily in order to keep blood sugar in check, a liberal amount of cheddar cheese for spermidine, and a few spoonfuls of pomegranate nodules.

 

All in all, this dementia therapy that I've derived mostly from my research here on Longecity has been so outrageously effective that I'm running out of statistical significance on Lumosity. So I've attached my rankings compared to the 20-24 age group as well. (I'm 40.)  All I can say is that if I never get any better, I'm extremely grateful for all the biohackers here who have tried experimental therapies and shared their results and attempted to explain them. "Mild cognitive impairment" (the neurologist's diagnosis) is now thoroughly part of my past. My Tidal Treasures scores have been perfect about 1/3 of the time in the past month, so I need Lumosity to come up with a more challenging object memorization game. (Of course, this is largely because I'm cheating by repurposing my visual memory to serve working memory purposes, as recommended by various memory masters. But I've started to carry this technique over into real life, with real benefits, so I really don't care how my brain is actually accomplishing this.)

 

As you can see in the line graph, my flexibility (multitasking) score has dropped since being on chocolate. This is probably the result of distraction due to a slight case of caffeine jitters, but this price is acceptable in light of the other mental (and presumably cardiovascular) benefits.

 

My friend is relatively stable with the aforementioned characteristics. I have done a heel-to-toe walking video, although I regret not having done this prior to GCSF, as the improvement has been obvious. Probably I'll take one more interview video before the trip to the therapy center, then another one posttherapy, then publish.

 

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Edited by resveratrol_guy, 11 November 2014 - 04:31 PM.

[resveratrol_guy]

So the infectious disease therapist prescribed 100 mg doxycycline twice daily (200 mg/d) for 30 days as a cautious treatment for vaguely suspected Lyme. My friend is going to take the antibiotic, mainly because it promises to destroy bacteria which might otherwise interfere with therapy. Obviously this will necessitate gut flora repopulation after the fact -- but not immediately, because we don't want to educate any bacteria about how to avoid antibiotic susceptibility -- which is an acceptable price. A repeat Lyme blood test will follow, which would incidentally be a good opportunity to repeat the previous tests posttherapy.

 

Unfortunately (fortunately?), doxycycline happens to be a weak form of chemotherapy against PANC-1 pancreatic cancer. So on the off chance PANC-1 microtumors are present and evolving, we'll probably end up training them to toughen their membranes. That would obviously be a bad thing, considering that pancreatic tumors tend to be hardwall and thus rather impenetrable to chemotherapy. So the decision has been made to eat a bitter gourd every day, so as to attack any undetected such cancers via the AMPK pathway simultaneously, making it less likely for the cells to survive long enough to respond to the induced evolutionary pressure. Meanwhile, resveratrol use continues as usual, at a few grams (sic) per day. Aspirin also reduces the odds of pancreatic cancer, but must be avoided for now due to the risk of excessive bleeding following perforation of the iliac crest. (NOTE: Cessation of existing asprin therapy is associated with a roughly 200% increase in the risk of this rare but deadly disease in the next 2 years; I'm not sure whether or not this is actually worse than simply never taking aspirin at all, but it bears mentioning and is discussed in the linked study.)

 

Do I suspect pancreatic cancer here? No. But it's so utterly devastating that we must tread very carefully when creating evolutionary pressure for incidental reasons.

 

In other news, a strawberry popsicle yesterday caused a moderate resurgence of head inflammation today. It migrated around for several hours before mitigating. This is of course unsurprising, but it does at least confirm that we have access to cerebrovascular inflammation signalling, virtually on demand. This adds to my confidence that something along the lines of cereal with skim milk (go IGF1!) is the way to go on the night before therapy (fasting is required, so breakfast is out) -- mainly because we need to slow down and spread out the inflammation over time, so as to ensure good coverage of the the operation itself. "[Fill in name of junk cereal here] is part of a complete breakfast with toast, juice, and milk" -- I still remember the TV ads in the 1980s. Yeah, if you want your kids to grow up with dementia.

 

Edited by resveratrol_guy, 13 November 2014 - 03:56 AM.

[resveratrol_guy]

I notice that you can't see image files unless you're logged in, which sucks for people who just randomly find this thread on Google. So from now on, I'll try to summarize more thoroughly in text as well.

 

To that end, here's my current Lumosity @ (40-44 age): LPI 94%, speed 88%, memory 97%, attention 90%, flexibility 87%, problem solving 95%. @ (20-24) age: LPI 85%, speed 71%, memory 90%, attention 77%, flexibility 75%, problem solving 94%. My LPI is 1544, but I'm going to stop reporting that because ranking is much more meaningful. The rise in memory from 90% to 97% is overwhelmingly due to Ghirardelli chocolate bars: 90-100 g/d @ 72-86% for more than a week. My sleep is shorter (~5 hrs/night) and more superficial (lots of dreams, probably not much deep sleep), but as mentioned above my mental performance has improved noticeably, except for multitasking ability, which has suffered due to minor jitters. (Normally, less than 7 hours or more than 8 makes my Lumosity performance worse.)

 

On the minus side, BP in the doctor's office was 150/90 today. Yeah, that sucks, even given the usual whitecoat hypertension. (But hey, it was 165-170 under similar circumstances a year ago after my cerebral incident.) I'm hoping that stem cell therapy will restore endothelial flexibility. I'm open to other biohacking suggestions in this department. Ameal peptide? K2-MK7? No clue what else to do while I wait for my friend's therapy to conclude so I can get on with my own.

 

While I'm at it, I should add the following for Google, so the community will eventually discover how this aforementioned seminal Indian study published in 2012 is being replicated here by a crack team of biohackers:

 

Keywords: Autologous Bone Marrow Derived Mononuclear Cell Therapy for Vascular Dementia, Sharma, Badhe, Gokulchandran, Kulkarni, Sane, Lohia, Avhad, Shetty

 

Edited by resveratrol_guy, 15 November 2014 - 02:01 AM.

[resveratrol_guy]

So I have been authorized to release more details on my friend. She is 55 and from the UK. In the videos, I call her "Sally".

 

The neurologist's notes of 10/17/2014 are attached. Redactions of identifying information appear in blue. They are otherwise unmodified, except for trivial image compression artifacts due to high-resolution JPG. (I switched from PNG, which is poorly supported in some browsers.) I was not present at the exam; my other friend took her, who also knows the key details of her case and is the "friend" in the report. Both of them told me that she could only walk a few steps heel-to-toe before losing balance. This is consistent with the report, which mentions that heel-to-toe is possible, but "lack of coordination" exists. BTW I think "fistein" refers to "fisetin".

 

If you can't see the images, here is the "Assessment" section:

 

Tinnitus (388.30) Unspecified tinnitus

Problem with balance (781.3) Lack of coordination

Peripheral neuropathy (356.9) Unspecified hereditary and idiopathic peripheral neuropathy

Memory loss (780.93) Memory loss

 

The neurologist stated: "As per the etiology of Pt's memory loss, it is unclear. The descriptions provided are rather vague, unclear if any executive dysfunction, rather complaints mostly involve retrograde amnesia. Pt does mention having anxiety, which certainly can impair memory and cognition, and is more likely the cause at this age. I do believe it is less likely related to a dementia at this time, though I would recommend a thorough workup to exclude reversible causes of memory loss and to closely evaluate cognitive status and brain perfusion (neuropsychological testing, PET brain, labs: B12, MMA, thyroid, folate)." It was subsequent to this that the above PET scan was done, revealing parietal hypoperfusion suggestive (but not diagnostic) of Lewy body dementia. Based on my personal familiarity with Sally, I can certainly say that anxiety is detracting from her mental performance. But the debatable nature of her dementia status and the bouts of intracranial inflammation suggest early stage vascular pathology, in my view, completely apart from any anxiety. In particuar, this hypothesis is supported by her modest but obvious improvement since taking GCSF; pure anxiety disorders in the relative absence of such pathology might well respond to SSRIs, but not stem cell mobilizers.

 

Indeed, the posterior inflammation flared up again today. I suppose it's a two-steps-forward-one-step back sort of affair. We'll see.

 

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Edited by resveratrol_guy, 15 November 2014 - 02:58 AM.

[resveratrol_guy]

For the record, we're debating whether or not to use I3C to suppress microtumor evolution (and moreover the metastasis of undetected cancer) during the first few weeks starting with bone marrow aspiration. It's not so much that we fear the stem cells turning into metastatic cancer (which is more of an allogenic/fetal/pluripotent issue), as that with the presumptive spike in macrophages, now would be a unique opportunity to pursue a proactive multivalent attack on nascent tumors. In other words, block the growth pathways and increase the number of circulating police in order to arrest more tumors before they can become aggressive.

 

OTOH we have to balance this against the main goal which is to foster endothelial repair (and to some extent neovascularization). Unfortunately, I3C downregulates estrogen, which would seem to imply downregulation of neuroprotection. Killing pathological neurons might actually result in better mental function. Then again, neurogenesis is unlikely to constitute a significant part of the repair process here, as previously discussed, so we would have to hope to make up for this tactic via enhanced neural efficiency. Nevertheless, other anticarcinogens like resveratrol and c60oo seem to support mental function despite being proapoptotic.

 

To I3C or not to I3C? That is the question...

 

Edited by resveratrol_guy, 16 November 2014 - 03:37 AM.

[Flex]

There are battery of compounds that block cancer development and kill them in quiet many various ways, when I think of Chinese herbs.

Some of them arent supposedly even harmful to normal cells (e.g. mTOR inhibition through Bupleurum, P53 through Curcumin), some other imply afaik proinflamatory pathways ( e.g. COX-2) that could be problematic.

 

I would look into them perhaps theres a third option out of two, so an alternative to: use/not to use I3C.

Some that pop in my mind are Dan Shen, Chinese skullcap( some are pro cancerogen but I guess the other outweight this), Tumeric, Bupleurum, CBD and so on.

Edited by Flex, 16 November 2014 - 04:04 PM.

[resveratrol_guy]

There are battery of compounds that block cancer development and kill them in quiet many various ways, when I think of Chinese herbs.

Some of them arent supposedly even harmful to normal cells (e.g. mTOR inhibition through Bupleurum, P53 through Curcumin), some other imply afaik proinflamatory pathways ( e.g. COX-2) that could be problematic.

 

I would look into them perhaps theres a third option out of two, so an alternative to: use/not to use I3C.

Some that pop in my mind are Dan Shen, Chinese skullcap( some are pro cancerogen but I guess the other outweight this), Tumeric, Bupleurum, CBD and so on.

 

Advice appreciated. Will discuss on our side.

 

BTW the curcumin-vs-P53 connection is mottled; for example it upregulates P53 in skin cancer but downregulates it in colon cancer, but then again colon cancer is rare is India. I'm an empiricist when it comes to biology, so I would probably dump the studies in the trash and look at the statistical connections observed in the environment. So yeah, for now, I like curcumin (and probably Longvida even moreso).