PATIENT EXPERIENCE  –  S P I N A L  C O R D  I N J U R Y

NAME:  Ms. Pai
    
COUNTRY:  China (Shenyang)

AGE: 38

DIAGNOSIS:  L2-L3 Incomplete Spinal Cord Injury. 

REASON FOR COMING FOR TREATMENT:  On March 7, 2003 there was an explosion in her apartment building; the floor collapsed and she fell from the second floor. Two days later she had surgery.  

TREATMENT:  IV injections and injections into the cerebral spinal cord fluid in Shenyang.

BEFORE THE TREATMENT (January 2006): She could not move her legs at all below her injury site. She had feeling but not very much below her injury site. She could also feel hot and cold but very little. She could not control her bladder or bowel movements. She could stand for about five minutes if two people held her from either side. She could slide her feet by using her hip muscles.

AFTER THE TREATMENT (August 13, 2006) After the first injection, she felt a warm feeling in her legs. After about three months, she started to be able to move her legs starting with her upper leg muscles. Eight months later, she could move her legs and bend he knees. She could walk with crutches. She could move her toes on her right foot but not like she could before the injury. The left toes are were not as mobile as her right but she could still move them. She could stand up for more than one hour by herself with crutches. Without any crutches she could stand for more than ten minutes.

Videos: (From an Interview with Ms. Pai)

Video 1: What was the lowest part of her body she could move? From her waist down. She had to lie in bed all of the time. When did she do the initial surgery? Some days after the accident.

Video 2: When she started to feel improvement after treatment, the second day after the injection, her legs were warm. Her legs became more powerful after three months.

Video 3: She had a feeling of sensation before below the injury but it was not very sharp. Now she can even feel a mosquito. Before the injury, she had some feeling in her toes but not much.

Video 4: Could she feel hot and cold before the treatment? A little bit. What is her situation now? Her right leg is better than her left leg. Can she move her toes? She can move the left side as well but not as well as the right. It is not the same as a normal person.

Video 5: Generally is she happy with the treatment? Did she expect more, expect less? She would take any chance to get any improvement. She did not expect so much at the time and she is happy with the treatment.

Video 6: She has been on a TV station. She left the hospital after the stem cell injections. She just came back recently but she has heard about many patients who have had improvements.

Videos (From an Interview with Mr. Xu, Ms. Pai’s rehabilitation doctor)

Video 7: She could not bend her knees. If she was sitting, could she move her leg at all back and forth. So basically she could not move her legs. Over the last few months, what kind of improvement has he seen? Now her balance is much better. She can sit by herself and with the help of crutches, she can stand up from the sitting position.

Video 8: And before when she started, how long could she stand. She could stand for five minutes with the help of two people. And now? Now she can stand up for more than one hour. She can stand without crutches or other support for over ten minutes.

Video 9: He thinks the stem cell injections helped her to regenerate the nerve cells so with the help of the combination of the stem cell injections and the rehabilitation program, she had such good improvement.

Video 10: Ms. Pai Walking on the Parallel Bars.

China Stem Cell News Notes: We met Ms. Pai for the first time eight months after her treatment in Shenyang. As such, the interview we did was mostly an overall fact finding endeavor so the video is not in a chronological order. In addition, getting descriptive answers from Chinese patients can be challenging especially when going through an interpreter so our readers should consider the video as background for the story.

This is the most improvement that we have seen for any patient with a spinal cord injury that we have met in person this long after the initial surgery. Ms. Pai’s case is quite famous in China because she has been featured on the main television station, CCTV. Ms. Pai went through a lot because two of her family members were also seriously injured.

It is very hard for us to figure out why she had such good improvement since she did not have a surgical injection of stem cells and no scar tissue was removed or any decompression was performed. We asked her rehabilitation doctor why he thought that she had so much improvement and he said that he felt that while the stem cells were very important to get her started, she was very focused on rehabilitation and when she went home after the initial treatment, she followed the routine he made for her religiously. She felt her determination and strength were key to her recovery.