Advanced Health Care in India: Stem Cell Treatment

During one of my few days in Delhi, I took some time to visit with Amy Scher, a woman I had been introduced to via email just days before she was departing the U.S. for India.

Amy has been in Delhi for a couple of months receiving embryonic stem cell treatment. If you’re on the “that’s just wrong” side of the fence, please read on. What I saw at this small clinic where she is being treated was truly a miracle and, I hope, might change the mind of anyone questioning the ethical use of stem cells.

While many patients at Dr. Geeta Schroff’s facility have a spinal chord injury, Amy has a different battle. She is trying to rid her body of the symptoms and ailments that have been ravaging her body for years as a result of a missed case (by numerous doctors) of Lyme Disease.

She writes about her experiences on the HealthCareHacks website. Her blog is an entertaining look at India as well as a survival guide at managing her health.

Amy getting her daily injection of stem cells.

And speaking of Amy’s health, she has made exciting progress since the start of her treatment, experiencing improvements in just a few weeks. In her words:

“In just over a month, I’ve seen a decrease in both my haunting body aches and nerve pain, stability in my balance, and a slight sharpening of my fuzzy vision. My inconsistent thyroid tests are returning to normal and my disheartening allergy to all things dairy (and yummy) have settled beyond any expectation, even in my far off ice cream dreams.”

Yeah, Amy. This is such good news!

For the most part, Amy’s progress is more internal in that she is feeling and seeing better, and that’s hard for the observer to notice.

What I found far more dramatic is the fact that paraplegics and quadriplegics are walking (with support) for the first time since their accidents, in some cases as long as 15 years ago. Yes, they’re walking.

But don’t just believe me, please visit these websites for personal stories of triumph:

Rusty without Wheels

Awakenings from Amanda

Chris Oberle

I am at once encouraged and angry that there is treatment for those with such severe body damage as having no use of their legs and arms, not to mention their bodily functions such as bladder control.

Encouraged because the medical community is making miracles. What else can you call it when, after less than two months of treatment, someone can feel their stomach muscles after 11 years of having no feeling below their chest?

Angry because the United States SHOULD be on the forefront of this research, yet this treatment is not even legal in this country, forcing patients to travel to the developing world for medical care.

I’m fooling myself, I know.

The powers that be (and I’m not just slamming the Bush administration - it goes far beyond that) have no incentive to make people healthy. Insurance companies, big pharma, health care providers, doctors (alternative practitioners aside), hospitals and clinics do not want you to be healthy. They need you to purchase their drugs, take their tests and visit their emergency rooms. They’d lose their jobs if you didn’t.

I’m not a radical about this stuff. I just think that we, the U.S., are on the wrong path with regards to health care and, in many ways, India has it right. Not only are they on the forefront of this cutting edge technology, but they also carry on the tradition of ayurvedic medicine that has been practiced for thousands of years.

And, in case you’re wondering, no I didn’t watch Michael Moore’s Sicko. Couldn’t. I saw less than 15 minutes and what I witnessed were a bunch of unhealthy people playing victim to the U.S. health care system. Take care of your body and if something does go sideways; a terrible disease, a heart attack, the loss of a limb, rely on the good doctors who can fix you up and know that there are alternatives to even the alternatives.

Imagine if Christopher Reeve chose stem cell treatment in order to walk again. Imagine Michael J. Fox being able to reduce the symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease and getting back to a normal way of life. And imagine your friends and relatives, everyday people like Amy, Amanda, Chris and Rusty, being able to get back to a normal life without having to navigate through a health care system built of brick walls; slowing the opportunity of medical breakthroughs and keeping people on drugs, denying them REAL progress in their health.

While we’re killing civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan and continuing to send men and women off to war to fight a war over nothing more than oil and imperialism, we’re denying Americans appropriate health care and the support of advancements in medicine. It’s not fair. War is money (see the movie Why We Fight) and making people healthy (particularly abroad) is not.

There’s far more to this issue than I can address in this one blog post. You can read more about this and other therapies from author Laurance Johnston, Ph.D who has researched alternative medicine for spinal chord injuries.

Travel Well!

You can also read about my India travels on my blog at the Seattle Post Intelligencer.

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