I am not overjoyed hearing someone say 100% are now enjoying a better life because in reality that is very doubtful no matter what doctor gave the treatment. I wonder if Mr. Trotter is a sales rep because they often spout such unsubstantiated claims, even the ones from reputable clinics that you would think should know better. Such enthusiasm is nice, but not what is needed to evaluate properly if you should get treatment with a particular clinic or doctor. To be honest with you (and I am not a doctor) I cannot see how one autologous treatment as he describes could do what he claims unless you are at the very earliest stage of the disease. Is there any way to get an opinion from Dr. Fernandez-Vina himself? Based on the information you have given, if it was me, I would not rush into this. Dr. Fernandez-vina may have written some papers on his treatment of your condition. I would ask if he has and have them e-mailed to you. They are probably not peer reviewed, but he is a well respected stem cell doctor.
Walter Trotter is a sales rep, confirmed. I spoke to him awhile back, before I passed on getting treatment from Dr. Vina permanently. Don't get me wrong...it was refreshing that he did speak English fluently. He lives in Mexico, and was quite pleasant to converse with. Dr. Vina is, as we have firmly established, a respected physician in the stem cell world. Claims of 100% improvement are very disturbing to me, however, since there is no way that this is possible. Simply not possible. Dr. Vina does not claim this percentage, but he did send me several word documents 2 years ago, and again last year pertaining to his cardiac injections. In one of these documents, he claimed that of about 50 patients getting the cardiac treatment, about 45 of them reported going from Class IV angina (very severe) to Class I or zero angina within 2-3 weeks! Again, this is highly suspect, and quite non-believable to me. Cellular treatment generally takes months to take full effect, an average of 3 months is commonly quoted for good results. 2-3 weeks for such results is just not believable to me. My reasons for not seeking treatment with Dr. Vina were: 1.) A doctor that does not speak fluent English, which is a "deal killer" for me 2.) distance to travel to Argentina 3.) the pricing which was quoted 4.) the claims of abnormally high success rates with very rapid improvement as discussed here.
I know that Nassin has had several treatments (or more) from Dr. Vina, and am convinced that Dr. Vina's treatments have helped him quite a bit. I am not doubting that Dr. Vina is achieving high success rates, since I don't have any information to the contrary. But claims of 100% are fictitious, period. No possible way. I am not a complete idiot, and such claims insult my intelligence.
Such claims are nothing other than a blatant sales tactic, and are foolish to make in my opinion. I would either ignore them completely, or take them with a grain of salt.
Now, please excuse me, I have sufficiently digressed here from what is important, which is getting you the best possible treatment:
I am a firm believer in autologous treatment, and specifically in marrow-based treatment such as Dr. Vina performs. You mentioned Regenocyte. They offer autologous treatment, but it is not marrow-based, it is a treatment done with a small drawing (about 1/2 pint) of your own peripheral blood (your regular-old blood drawn with a needle into a bag). Regenocyte uses Theravitae's lab in Israel. Your blood is sent via air courier to the Israel lab, and comes back a week later to be re-infused into the affected area (lungs, heart, etc.) I had a Theravitae treatment for heart disease in Bangkok in 2007, and can't say whether it had any benefit or not.
Basically, Dr. Grekkos (Regenocyte) is Theravitae's USA-based doctor, although the treatments are not in the USA, of course.
Barbara can tell you which clinics offer marrow-based treatment. The "catch" is that (as you probably already know) very few of them offer injection of cells directly to the lungs, which could be important, we just don't know yet.
My cardiologist in USA feels that direct injection will ultimately be one of the elements involved when stem cell treatments are legalized in western countries. However, there is evidence (and studies) showing that IV-based stem cell treatments result in stem cells being trapped (at least temporarily) in the lungs. For a pulmonary patient, this may not be a bad thing!!
Should you want to try a simple marrow-based IV treatment (or two, or three), there are options for far lower cost in Germany and even in California, using varying techniques.
If money is an issue, Dr. Vina is more expensive than these two places, and Dr. Grekkos (Regenocyte) is by far the most expensive. He is one of the most expensive clinics, period!
Keep in mind, also, that I said "a treatment (or two, or three)" because it is becoming more and more obvious that one treatment will not take care of a chronic condition, such as pulmonary or cardiac. The price ranges are extreme, but Dr. Grekkos charges more than 10 times what the least expensive IV treatment can be had for, and more than twice what Dr. Vina charges!!
If you want direct injection to the lungs, and you want marrow-based treatment, then Dr. Vina may be the best and/or only option that you have, and could be the way to go for you.
Just be sure to toss all that "100 percent" stuff out the window!
(I think I ranted on long enough on that subject!)
I wish you the very best in the pursuit of finding the best treatment options and hope for improvement of your condition.
I will be happy to assist you in any way that I can, and hope that you see that I am trying to assist, and not put any damper on your decision.
In the end, getting cellular treatment is a gamble, and we each do our own research, and make decisions based on the knowledge that we gather. I am sure that I have made some poor decisions along the way!
