Oh, for the magic pill...

I am an intelligent, educated individual. I like to think that I can recognize an e-mail scam and that I won't get taken by a phony website. However, like most parents who have a child with a disability, I try to stay abreast of current research and I maintain hope for a big discovery that will make a drastic difference in my daughter's life. We did try some nutritional supplements that had big promises for drastic improvements. They didn't cost so much that we had to take out a loan to buy them, and we did see a nice improvement in digestive regularity, which made it worth the money - especially when you consider the fact that we avoided medication to achieve the same results.

So when I went to a conference and heard a speaker talk about... stem cell therapies... I tried to remain skeptical, not get too hopeful. I am not a parent who jumps into things with both feet - I tend to hang back and wait until someone else tries it first. So we won't be making a trip to Mexico anytime soon. But it all sounded so reasonable, so plausible - it seemed to makes sense. It gave me hope.

I just finished watching a video segment from 60 Minutes on "21st century snake oil" in the form of stem cell therapies which promise everything, result in nothing and cost you a bundle in the bargain. So my roller coaster car is back on the down slope re. stem cell research. I do believe it holds great promise for the future - just not the near future. Granted, the network expose profiled a man who calls himself a doctor and isn't an MD. And he was preying upon folks with ALS and MS and promising a cure. And he was charging them WAY more than the doctor I heard at the conference. Still... office in CA, clinic in Mexico, a lot that sounded quite similar.

I'm going to do more research on the doctor I heard speak. I'm going to keep reading everything I find on stem cell research. I've already sent my daughter's baby teeth to a storage facility where her own stem cells have been extracted and are waiting... for the future.

There is no miracle cure. There is no magic pill. But there is always hope.