I haven’t slept at all last night. My son was complaining so I tested him while he was sleeping and it was 160 after not eating for over 6 hours, I’m making dr. appointments today but sadly I’m pretty sure he has T1D. I banked his cord blood and tissue with viacord. Has anyone actually used the stem cells? How do you even go about doing that. I know it won’t cure it but I was reading it could prolong the honeymoon phase? There is a lot of conflicting info out there. Hoping someone has used the cord blood before and could provide some insight. THanks
Doug Melton at Harvard has made great progress on growing islet cells from stem cells, but as far as I know these have never been transplanted into humans. And this is only half the solution, if you cannot suppress the autoimmune reaction that is killing the beta cells, then any transplanted cells would befall the same fate. If you really want to cut right to the chase you could just contact Prof. Melton.
thanks for the reply but I was wondering about just injecting the stem cells directly into the body or pancreas. I think Ive read that people have done that
As far as I know, nobody thinks that just injecting stem cells does anything. All the research I have seen is focused on pushing the stem cells to become pancreatic cells in a controlled environment and then to transplant those. I would recommend that you contact Prof. Melton, or perhaps DRI.
2 Likes
This will not help as the (eventual, if they differentiate) pancreatic cells will be destroyed by the autoimmune attack of Type 1.
I recommend taking your child to the ER ASAP. Children with untreated Type 1 can progress to DKA surprisingly quickly, and this can impact whether complications occur down the road.
Good luck and please keep us posted; my thoughts are with you!
IMO, possibly prolonging the honeymoon wouldn’t be worth the effort in light of the fact that BG levels are much more unpredictable and difficult to control in children during the honeymoon phase. Tight BG control has much more impact on the development of complications down the road than does a longer honeymoon. Quite frankly, both my daughter and I were relieved when her honeymoon ended.
An older story…