Home

Why Neurologists in the US Don't Recommend HSCT (Month +35.8)

Details

Written by MS Warior

Category: Recovery Blog

Created: 03 June 2019

I recently filmed a lecture for the local MS group. The MS genius, Dr. Timothy West, gave a fantastic 30,000 ft view of the world of multiple sclerosis from his point of view as a practicing clinician. He covered all the new technologies, current treatments, and the myriad of choices he must make in treating patients.

Someone in the audience asked, "what about stem cell replacement?" There were two interesting parts to Dr. West's answer.

First, he said that a patient's own assessment of his illnesses is much worse than how a doctor perceives it. That sounds plausible to me, almost to a frustrating level.

Second, he said that doctors practicing western medicine have an obligation to the Hippocratic Oath, which basically states, "first do no harm." According to societal norms, it's better for a doctor to do nothing and watch his patient slowly die than to intervene with a powerful drug and accidentally kill the patient. This is true even if the drug has a good chance of curing the patient and potentially saving his life. Doctors don't have the option of risking life if there's a less dangerous way. Think about the liability here.

Read more: Why Neurologists in the US Don't Recommend HSCT (Month +35.8)

What is MS?

Details

Written by MS Warior

Category: MS

Created: 24 July 2016

Updated 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 which 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).

Read more: What is MS?

What is HSCT?

Details

Written by MS Warior

Category: Stem Cell Transplant

Created: 08 July 2016

Updated 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 which can grow in to 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.

HSCT (aka ASCT) for autoimmune disease (i.e. MS) is not yet FDA approved in the USA, and therefore most Western Medicine neurologists have little or no idea what the treatment is, what it does, or how safe it is.

Read more: What is HSCT?