My dad has a bad heart. He is 73, and goes into the hospital every other month with fluid in his lungs. Â The doctors tell us he is on good treatment, and the only additional treatment would be a heart transplant. Â We did find a doctor who said he can use “stem cell treatment” in the heart, and he has good results, but he can’t do this in Texas where we live. Â We would have to travel to somewhere in the Caribbean, so he could do it there. Should we do this?
Your father has what doctors call a cardiomyopathy, or as you said a bad heart. Â His heart is not strong enough to pump all of the blood forward, so fluid builds up in the lungs, and frequently in the legs. Â We have good medications to help these symptoms, but sometimes that is not enough. Â While stem cell therapy appears to be very promising in the future, it is not yet FDA approved in America. Â We have seen some very good studies for patients just like your dad with a bad heart muscle, but they are small studies and not yet confirmed with larger studies. Â So the jury is still out on stem cell treatment for cardiomyopathy.
To learn more about cardiac stem cell therapy, watch this video from VideoMD.com.
Tweet This Post