Although harsh drugs and strict diet were successfully supressing my devestating MS relapses, disease progression was quickly deteriorating my ability to walk and slowly deteriorating my ability to think. The logical solution for me was to try HSCT, which is not FDA approved, so I left the country to do it. This website documents my research and journey to effect a cure.
A couple of weeks ago, I had four MRIs: brain stem, C-spine, T-spine, and L-spine. I'll spare the details about the cost and pain they caused me. The great news is that there's no new visual evidence of activity related to MS! (Yes, that's great news; however, even better news would have been a decrease in lesion size or quantity; read on.)
I've had MRIs at annual intervals since I recovered from the chemotherapy given as part of the HSCT procedure, beginning about six months post-transplant. This was my third annual set; however, this was my first set that went all the way from head-to-tail. The tests were done without contrast (no gadolinium).
Add a commentUpdated March 31, 2018.
MS stands for Multiple Sclerosis, which basically means "many scars." The scars develop in the central nervous system (CNS), composed of the brain and spinal cord, as the result of an attack from the body's own immune system.
In a normal body, an attack of the CNS would still be a pretty awful thing, but the body would fight the attacking agents, clear away the resulting plaque, then begin to repair the damage. Sclerosis is a type of scar tissue that is atypical of a cleanly healed injury.
In people with MS, the immune system is stuck in fighting mode, commonly thought to be the result of high levels of inflammation in the body. This keeps the CNS stuck in defense mode, preventing normal healing of the damage. The attack is not the result of a typical virus or bacterial infection, it's actually the body's own immune system doing the damage. This process is referred to as "autoimmune" (immune system attacking the self). Dr. Stephen Gundry refers to this process as "friendly fire." There are a hundred or more different autoimmune diseases. Some of the most common ones are Graves' Disease, Hashimoto's Thyroiditis, Lupus, Type 1 Diabetes, Chron's Disease, Rheumatoid Arthritis and Multiple Sclerosis (MS).
Add a commentUpdated 7/14/16
Analogous Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplant, sometimes abbreviated as ASCT or HSCT, is a process by which your own (analogous) hematopoietic stem cells (i.e. immune system stem cells), grown in your own bone marrow, are harvested from your body (usually through your blood), then given back to you after chemotherapy (which wipes out your existing immune system) to rebuild a new immune system (without memory of your autoimmune disease) from scratch.
This is in effect a reboot of the immune system.
There are many types of stem cells in the body, each of which can grow into particular types of new cells. Hematopoietic stem cells grow into new immune cells, and they are abundant and easy to capture. Furthermore, a mobilizing drug (i.e. filgrastim) can be used to encourage the bone marrow to generate HSCs by the millions.
Below is a timeline I created of the "Mexican Method," as performed by Clínica Ruíz. This protocol is a little different from that of Dr. Richard Burt and Dr. Shimon Slavin, who were the pioneers of this amazing process. As of this writing, this process is not yet FDA approved in the USA, but it is in a Stage 3 Clinical Trial.
The Mexican Method, illustration by A. Fisher version 10, updated 6/17/16 *Subject to Change!
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