Stem Cell Treatment for Michael's Spinal Disease

Hello friends and family, this is Michael, thank you for visiting my GoFundMe.

As many of you close to me may know, I've been battling a debilitating autoimmune disease called Ankylosing Spondylitis that eats away at my spine resulting in eventual spinal fusion and a connective tissue disorder that has created severe chronic pain, injuries, and declining quality of life over the last 4 years. Since being on Humira and various opiates, I’m hoping to receive MSC stem cell treatment to help my disease and prevent further damage.

I always considered myself relatively healthy and that was true until I was 22.

It started with clear signs of carpel tunnel and poor circulation in both arms of what I can only describe as having a tourniquet wrapped tightly around my biceps causing my hands to turn very red when resting. Once I saw no improvement after 12 weeks of Physical therapy to treat it, I had additional testing and was given my current diagnosis of Thoracic Outlet Syndrome (a painful condition when the nerves in my arms become trapped under my collarbone).

By this point I had grown very depressed as I was having trouble holding up my arms or gripping more than 5lbs in my hands, so exercise was out of the question, and once I met with the surgeon, he went over my scans and told me I have very loose ligaments which caused it and that he didn’t believe surgery would benefit me and could potentially cause worse issues.

After 6 months of struggling to find answers the bad luck continued, with my body weaker I slipped a disc in my L5-S1 causing my first bout with sciatica. This is when my health began to severely decline, I lost my job as I had trouble walking, I couldn’t sleep, I racked up thousands in debt, and spent most of my days laying on the ground with opiates to help subside the pain. If my wife wasn’t there to cook food for me and motivate me to do my PT, I’m not sure how I would’ve gotten through it.

I eventually got it somewhat under control, but as the late Billy Maze would say, ‘Wait there’s more!” After trying to return to exercise, I pinched a nerve in my thoracic spine causing debilitating shocks while moving, and a pinched nerve in my neck caused me to accept life with chronic pain. By this point I was almost 24 and the pain was spreading to every crevice in my body. I was able to get MRI scans of my knees/hips/shoulders/and SI joints and to my surprise, all showed Stage 2 arthritis and inflammation which is when the alarm bells really went off and I got the autoimmune disease diagnosis. And to top it off, a biopsy revealed that the copious amounts of medication I was on caused an ulcer in the lining of my stomach.

This all took place in under 2 years, I had 7 MRI scans done, almost 40 weeks of PT from 3 different PT’s, and had appointments with pretty much every specialist I can think of.

As you can imagine, it genuinely felt like my world was crashing down and I was robbed of my youth. The news continued this year before my 26th Birthday after receiving a 2nd MRI of my spine showing 3 more bulging discs in my T5-T8, a ruptured disc in my neck, and disc height loss in all the surrounding discs. Since then I have been prescribed Humira, an immunosuppressant medication that shuts my immune system down in hopes of stopping the inflammation which comes with it’s own mystery box of symptoms and side effects to deal with. But my nerves and spine continue to slowly become more stiff and hard to manage without pain medication.

Even with all these treatments, they only hope to slow the progression of my disease but cannot stop it completely or prevent eventual full fusion of my spine. But after doing research and speaking with a family friend who has the same disease at a later stage that found benefit from receiving stem cells I found optimism again.

I wake up every morning and it feels like my back or neck or SI joints have aged years. You never realize how lucky it is to go through a full day without pain and aches until you no longer can.

My hope is to get treatment at the highly renowned BioXcellerator in Medellin for MSC(Mesenchymal) Stem Cells injections. These have been shown to have the potential to regrow cartilage, restore disc height, and even reduce inflammation in the body. This is one of the only known treatments that can actually give me the chance to possibly gain back some of what I’ve lost and give me a few more healthy years.

After speaking with a patient advocate at BioX, my treatment will inevitably be quite extensive with injections in my knees, SI joints, 6 discs in my spine, and an IV accompanied by 3 sessions in a hyperbaric chamber. It will cost upwards of $40,000 and that doesn’t include travel and stay but even having the possibility to receive this treatment in any capacity would change my life.

It took a lot out of me to write this asking for help and sharing all of this, but these last few years I’ve watched my body decay to a state I never thought I’d have to experience and I fear with time it will get to a point of no return, I want to be able to run around and play with my future kids and I believe after extensive research that stem cells may be a way to help me get there. My spine, neck, and joints are becoming worse as the days go on, so I write this with a heavy heart for anybody who may want to help donate.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for all the support, and I appreciate you reading my story.