Stem Cell Therapy? Snake oil or fact.

Like the thread title says. 

My wife's knees are fubar. Have been forever. She now has OA and is in pain. MRI was yesterday. She has an orthopedic appointment in a month or so, but also has a stem cell therapy appointment tomorrow. 

Most of the stem cell therapy information on the interwebs reads like a late-night infomercial. Factual information is almost impossible to find. It's like no one has actually published a study on this. There is little info on the FDA's website beyond buyer beware. Prices are just stupid and insurance naturally doesn't cover it because it's experimental. 

Do any of you ladies and gents have any input. Tried it? Success, or failure? Am I better off finding her a drug dealer for a bag of weed?

Thanks. 

Edit to add, it looks like most places doing the treatments are using an FDA loophole and calling them investigative treatments. But no one is showing the results of their investigations.  

Why wouldn't she just get knee replacement??

My best friend went to Mexico to have stem cell injected in his knee that got destroyed from a motorcycle wreck years ago.  He said it was the greatest thing since sliced bread and has since taken up MotoX again.

I'm not the expert but I believe the type of stem cell therapy that is legal in the US is not nearly as effective as what is available elsewhere (Mexico).  Joe Rogan has an episode of his podcast that he discusses it with Mel Gibson.  It's worth a listen if you can't find any other info.  I believe it's cheaper down there too even taking travel into account.

is it legal in any european countries ?

I know a few folks that have had it. One says "eh, seems to help take the edge off." And the other swears by it, while at the same time always looking for the newest and best "alternative" solution. It's been suggested to me by some folks for my neck, but I'm not that enthusiastic to be honest. 

Fact, I used to work for a biotech company and we used stem cells for some fabulous things.

I think you'll find that the majority of stem cell published studies are lacking because of the conservative legislation that has been surrounding stem cell imposed morality.  I did some googles on this a while back when my uncle (a protestant minister) was being treated for cancer with stem cell stuff.

Basically, a certain faction of folks who believe stem cell stuff is terrible have successfully lobbied for legislation that keeps it "fringe science" and therefore not real medicine.  It's somewhat the same reason you don't see MDs publishing in medical journals about the healing powers of incense and Celine Dion music.  It has been labeled in some indications as fake science.  There has been a hard push to exclude it from medicine because of the connotation that it deals with abortion and fetuses (even though it doesn't have to).

I can't speak to this specific procedure and I realize this is completely anecdotal, but my uncle was given 1-2 years to live.  After two years when he was about to give up to go meet Jesus, a new stem cell treatment became available.  He accepted and was treated.  Diagnosed in 2010, supposed to die by 2012, and thanks to the stem cell treatment, we buried him last summer.  8 more years of hugging my uncle was a great thing.

I mostly said all of that to describe why I think it is not covered by your insurance, not as an endorsement for a medical treatment as I quit pre-med as a major in 1996 to switch to a theater degree.  Is it possible to find insurance that does cover it?  I'm thinking that if you're trepidatious about forking over the money for something that may not work (which can be said for any medical procedure), having it be on someone else's dime might be worth an afternoon of shopping carriers.

I will say that stem cell research is far from snake oil in the encounters I've had with it.

In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :

I would be interested in reading your sources for that. 

Toyman01 + Sized and said:

Edit to add, it looks like most places doing the treatments are using an FDA loophole and calling them investigative treatments. But no one is showing the results of their investigations.  

I think that sums it up pretty well. A lot of the proponents seem to be "Let's isolate a set of cells that can develop into anything and inject them here with no control over what they do - what could possibly go wrong?" This is something that might have some good applications when done right, but seems to be over-promoted as a cure for just about anything.

My experience is from exposure to people who were studying stem cell therapy for cardiac applications. 

It seems to be up there with graphene when we speak of technologies that do not live up to the miraculous  Sci-fi expectations that were theorized.  

In the case of organ repair such as the heart, getting the tissue to grow was not the issue ( as far as I understood) it was that the new healthy tissue never learned what its purpose was and was unable to participate in the function of said organ. In the case of a knee therapy, it might be that cartilage does not really "do" anything other than provide force absorption and hence just generating cartilage cells would be acceptable.

Not to say that the Science is wrong, just not fully figured out.  mRNA technology as used in the current vaccines is another example of a medical technology that languished in the background due to non conclusive results as a cancer drug. Now that it has been fast tracked and in the open, I am curious to see where else it shows up.

Adoption of new therapies in the Western World is nut-bars level complicated. Between patents, lobyist (for and against the therapy), FDA regulations and insurance companies, the monetary grist is unreal.  I am surprised anything gets out to the consumer.

Look into PRP ( platelet rich plasma) treatment. They draw blood, centrifuge into plasma and inject it into the knee. It bought me 3 years before I had a knee replacement. When I told the surgeon it was time for the replacement, he said when he first saw me 3 years previously, the knee was bad enough that he would have had no qualms about replacement at that time. 

I'll echo everyone above. 

I see it advertised as a cure-all for everything from dandruff to cancer. Well, it could be, but the only other thing that I've seen touted and advertised as a cure-all (and actually gained traction in a similar, long-lasting way) is marijuana. I bring this up not to say that they're equivalent, but to point out that there are definitely things that marijuana can help for, but there is no way that it is anywhere close to everything it is cracked up to be, and it may end up doing a lot of harm. We just don't know. I look at stem cell therapy in a similar way - there is no way it is as good as everyone says it is. Maybe that is just tempering my own hopes. 

Research - at least in this country - is lacking, so, like you've found, it isn't really approved for much. That doesn't mean it isn't good for much - just that it is caught up in the politics and red tape that occur in this country. I've seen enough anecdotes that make me really believe there is something there, but knowing what they are - anecdotes - always tempers my expectations of the treatment. The placebo effect is strong, and real. 

I personally THINK stem cell therapy has the potential to be as important as vaccines and antibiotics in the future, and would be discussing it very seriously with my doctor if I had something that stem cells could potentially help. But I don't know it. 

Toyman01 + Sized and said:

In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :

I would be interested in reading your sources for that. 

 

My point was that it was anecdotal.  My source is my pre-med/biochem background and an interest in the subject of medicine.

If you want at least a little more science....  As of when I was pre-med, much of the medical community here was just starting stem cell things, but I know Serbia, Russia, and Japan were making huge leaps.  Perhaps look up medical journals from those countries?

Here are 1200 articles in one journal of medicine in the US.  Probably a few million more in the hundreds of medical journals around the world.

American Journal of Medicine, The - Search Results (amjmed.com)

List of medical journals - Wikipedia

I've been through many of those. I have found one university study covering stem cell therapy for Osteoarthritis in the knee that suggested stem cell injections were just as affective as saline and less affective than cortisone. Lots of anecdotal evidence saying it works, mostly from companies and hospitals selling the service. Lots saying it doesn't, mostly from orthopaedic doctors and people who only had limited or temporary relief.

There is not much in the way facts available unfortunately. My wife is going to get the sales pitch today, but I can't see shelling out $5k+ when a company or doctor can't produce quantifiable results or any kind of professional study for their product. 

rustybugkiller said:

Why wouldn't she just get knee replacement??

 

She is 53. Life span of a replacement knee is 10 to 12 years. She would need another replacement before she hits 65-70. 

So if you get stem cell injection does that make you like Dwight from the office? Where are you have absorbed some of the baby and now you have the strength of a man and a baby?