A 20 year old young man from Bedford, Texas was about to lose his arms and legs due to the clotting of blood in his vessels caused by meningitis but no longer.
The treatment involved doctors and technicians at Parkland Hospital in Dallas, Florida, Israel and the Dominican Republic, and one aunt with a computer search.
(While it's wonderful that this young man was rescued, I can't help but wonder how many other experiments are going on in other countries, led by US doctors. Remember that Dr. Wilkerson of Houston did his first experiments using adult stem cells in Brazil.)
From the Fort Worth Star Telegram (Free subscription required):
Lampkin's medical odyssey has taken him from his home in Bedford to a hospital in an island country for a treatment the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has not approved.
Sudden onset
It began when Lampkin, a freshman attending Cisco Junior College on an athletic scholarship, returned home for spring break.
That Friday he was fine. But on Saturday while visiting friends, he complained of having a headache and went to bed early, said Michelle Gideon, Lampkin's godmother.
The next morning -- Easter Sunday -- she found him lying on a bedroom floor.
"One side of his face looked totally normal, but the other side was swollen and looked like he had chickenpox," she recalled.
Lampkin was rushed to Harris Methodist H.E.B. Hospital, where he was treated for bacterial meningitis. Those chickenpoxlike spots were signs of clots cutting off blood flow.
Antibiotics helped stabilize Lampkin, who was transferred to Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas.
There doctors planned to amputate his legs at the knees and his arms at the elbows.
But an aunt searched the Internet for other treatments and found Grekos, who was using adult stem cells to stimulate tissue regrowth, improve circulation and reduce diabetic amputation rates. Grekos, director of cardiology and vascular disease at Regenocyte Therapeutic in Florida, flew to Dallas to escort Lampkin and his mother to the facility.
"If there was any hope of helping this young man we wanted to offer it," he said.
Once Lampkin was in Florida, his blood was drawn and sent to a lab in Israel.
Although it was Passover and the lab staffers were on vacation, they agreed to process the blood, Grekos said. The cells were then replicated into millions of super cells that Grekos' company has branded "Renocytes." The cells can become almost any type of new cell or tissue, he said.
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