Stem Cell therapies draw my attention 10 years ago. It brings me hopes to hear better.
I didn't know about stem cells till mid 2008.
And I may discuss my thought.
1 Going to China to get the therapy is not my choice. I am a HK citizen, and every year,
there are alternative therapies claiming that they may treat AIDS, Cancers, Deafness etc., and none has been proved effecetive.
Stem cells today are treating many different diseases. Not sure if it can help with AIDS yet.
2 How to regenerate the inner ear hair is the main issues. The problem is:
the inner ear is a closed area, it is difficult to send enough stem cells there comparing heart mussel, lung etc., . In today's technology, the amount of stem cells we may transport to inner ear area is very limited. Using Virus (harmless) is one direction, but there is
a long road from here.
Stem cells does not use viruses(which themselves can be dangerous) all that needs to be done is inject ~20 million stem cells by IV in arm. A small amount of them will migrate to your cochlea and the average improvement is 20db per treatment. I can repeat this as often as once a month.
Unless the researchers solves the point 2, I don't think it is the right time to risk
a bundle of cash.
Stem cells already works, we have seen Chloe's amazing success. We will see many more successes in the next few months and years.
Deafdude,
Right in your audiogram you can see that you aren't aided up to where a CI hears. My daughter's audiologist doesn't let you leave the booth until you are above 30 db in ALL frequencies. You were not there from 2000 hz and above. THAT is why parents get a CI. So that our kids can hear all the speech sounds, not just some.
They did not have transpositional HAs back in 1998. I made do very well with the HA technology of that time. CI back in 1998 wasn't much help, maybe 10% better speech than what I got with HAs in 1998. But I still understood enough speech to be 100% oral, speak clearly and understand what others say(I did lipread alot) The audiologist did mention CI to my dad in case I lost all my residual hearing. I would not have wanted a CI unless I heard zip with HAs. But CI is a moot point today. Once I get my improvement in my hearing, ill be there at 2000Hz and above. Ill make sure of this with transposition if necessary. 25% of people have so much hearing that HAs would have done the job fine, no need for CI. Let me tell you, id be very happy if my hearing was as good as those 25% who got CI. Ill be able to do very, very well with HAs and even hear to some degree without HAs!
You are young, and you are making oldbob sad. Are you a stemcell salesperson from overseas?
He is my friend who became deaf in one ear due to a tennis ball hitting his ear and rupturing the delicate hair cells. He would love to be able to hear again with both ears and feels so one-sided. I don't know why oldbob doesn't want stem cells, but I respect his choice. His hearing is pretty good anyway, wish I had his hearing! Some of us here want stem cells and oldbob provided more information in this thread. I thank him for this.