It's good, but it's not where I wanted to be ...

Good Evening everyone!!

Well ... it seems as though the last 11 weeks since my adult stem cell treatment and I had hoped for more. I realize that I went into the procedure apparently still fighting an URI. That was the 1st negative in my favor. With that being said, my newly awakened "stemmies" had thier work cut out for them right off the bat with an issue that was not on the planned list of attack.

I have since that time, done 6 days inpatient with bilateral pneumonia, to the tune of $33K ... ridiculous at best. Then the allergy induced asthma reaction ... all this treated with large IV steroid medication, multiple high-powered antibiotics, and two long (12 days each) rounds of prednisone tapers. This last one, I stopped abruptly on Friday due to becoming violently ill Thursday night with what we thought may have been some sort of ulcerative response in my gut. Hillary thought at one point, signs of a heart attack. I knew it wasn't a heart attack, having suffered from ulcers in the past. When I was diagnosed with the gastroparesis, I was postive for the H-pylori bacteria as well. Now, with that being said, long term, high dose steroid use can cause a multitude of problems and I am not going to let that happen.

I am feeling better, breathing is much clearer, and another 2 days and I am done with this prednisone crap. It can cause, and I have felt it over the past several weeks, a lack of appetite, weight loss, a metalic taste to everything, that pain in my gut that feels like someone made me drink battery acid. None of this pleasant. On Thursday I got violently ill due to the gastric pain caused by increased acid production by the prednisone. When I stopped it abruptly for 24 hours, I began to suffer some withdrawal effects, none of these pleasant either. Today, I am done to 5 mg twice a day, tomorrow will be 5 at night for 3 nights and I am done. I am seriously going to tell the doctor should something this happen again, I want a different sort of treatment. This is crap and can do so much damage that I am not sure I want to risk this again ... I know ... breathing is an essential need, but really ... there must be other treatments available that do not do so much damage...??

Ok ... with all that being said, it has me a tad frustrated in where I was hoping to be with my stemmie treatment. I have had some wonderful results thus far, but can't help but feel I would have had better results if I had not had the URI going in. My bad, maybe I shouldn't have been so eager and waited it out for treatment, the opportunity was there, and I wasn't about to put it off. I have been weaned off my Cymbalta for chronic pain due to fibromyalgia and arthrits that set in from years of abuse, physically. I haven't taken anything other than some Tylenol since treatment to relieve any sort of pain. My digestive tract, for the most part, and in spite of the prednisone, has been one of the most remarkable positive results thus far for the diabetes. I was disappointed in my A1c being 8.1 and that is a direct result of the prednisone treatment .... it makes blood sugar control a crap shoot at best.

so ...I have been trying to get past my frustration and put into play the physiological aspects of the treatment and the results I have experienced to date. I will be planning on a second treatment but we are still months off from that so I need to be vigilant in my quest for better health. I need to be realisitc in that I have lived with diabetes for 38+ years, I can't expect it to go away with one treatment. I do, however, wonder, will it get me that much closer to a cure. I still believe this as fact, and I believe that if the US doesn't pull thier political head out of the asses of those that rule, that nothing is going to happen in a positive manner in regard to the US being any sort of super hero on any front.

I will continue to plug away for the science adn the treatments to be available here in the States ... I believe and therefore, I will do my best to educate those of may be a little closed minded in the thought process of such treatments.

On that note, I have some cleaning up to do and to get ready for another day at the office tomorrow. My stamina is coming back again, but am still listening to my body in regard to when it yells, I listen, and rest. Whatever needs to be done tonight, will still be there tomorrow if I don't get to it .... LOL ....