Stem Cell treatment

I think alot of people may disagree with the last part of your statement 

My best advice to you is that at the moment there is no known cure for autism. However there is hope new stem cell treatments will probably be FDA Approved in the future. You might of heard about the Duke University stem cell trial for kids with autism. Following stem cell treatment their autistic symptoms significantly improved including socialisation abilities. CNN did an article on it here https://edition.cnn.com/2017/04/05/health/autism-cord-blood-stem-cells-duke-study/index.html. So for now don't spend your hard earned cash on stem cell treatments they'll be available for free on NHS if it gets FDA Approved. Wait until the clinical trials are completed plus some clinics are scams.

Stem Cell therapy in Duke University trial shows promise and has proved to improve socialisation abilities in people with ASD. The Duke University trial demonstrated this. There will be a cure for ASD in the future and plus there are no positives of having ASD.

The doctors on the NHS are not aware of recent innovations in autism research such as stem cell therapy (e.g Duke University Stem Cell Trial). Of course don't go to some random clinic abroad and pay loads I'd recommend it when it gets FDA Approved. But no doctors in the UK are not aware of stem cell for autism yet.

It is very valid. The study was done in Duke University and after kids received stem cell treatment their socialisation abilities improved dramatically. I understand it's not yet FDA approved however I am confident it will be in the future. I'm quite shocked by some of the comments here by some users quickly stating that autism has no cure. It has no KNOWN cure but I'm sure in the future we'll have some sort of cure for autism. Stem Cell therapy shows real promise for Aspergers and Autism. Check it out on CNN and other reliable news sites including Duke Uni's site.

Not to cast dispersions on cnn but not sure of the validity of this...

Stem Cell therapy shows promise in ASD according to a CNN article. It could work!

Hi Emma thank you so much for that information. The school is now putting a plan together and has a Speach and language expert come in for a few days to see if they can visually by picture do a plan so cross fingers. To be honest I don’t know how to do my own thread but I will get someone to help me lol. You have given me a few answers thank you so much for that. We will definitely try your advice and see what changes it will make . To be honest I worry that he will be lonely and I feel for him , but I suppose we have to accept his needs and will have to try and learn with him so he will be happy . I have read so much about stem cell and I know know it won’t help so I can put that to bed lol. Thank you so much for replying 

Hi Sue,

I think you would get more responses by starting your own thread; this one is very old and the OP may no longer be active. 

I feel like I should start by reiterating, as others have said, that there is no cure for autism. Stem cells do not do anything except drain your wallet (and that money could be better spent on interventions that would actually help, such as CBT, sessions with a speech therapist or counselling as your grandson gets older). There are, however, ways to work with your grandson that can greatly improve things re. his temper. 

"He is a big boy for his age and he’s just lashing out but he won’t stop till he gets tiered, that within a few minutes."; is he getting to a point where he seems to snap and become inconsolably distressed along with the lashing out, then after a few minutes of this gets exhausted and needs to rest?
That is a common pattern in autistic people. We find it very difficult to process negative emotions, so they build up throughout the day until we can't take it any more and we experience what can only be described as an emotional explosion (the "meltdown"). Looks like a tantrum, but the root cause is very different. 

Do you find that when he is lashing out after "not getting his own way" that even giving him what he wanted does not stop the upset? That is another strong sign that it is a meltdown you are dealing with rather than a tantrum.

I gave another parent some advice on meltdown management that you and your daughter might also find useful when it comes to dealing with your grandson. https://community.autism.org.uk/f/introduce-yourself/12975/new-diagnosis-help 
Often the reaction to "not getting their own way" is also partly a "deviation from expected script" thing, especially if the thing they wanted was to go somewhere or do something.

He may never socialise with many people, he may become a massive extrovert (some of us do. I did). That's not necessarily a bad thing as long as he's happy with the situation though. He is who he is. Try not to worry about the 'going off alone for hours' too much either, I expect it's his way of decompressing and coping with the stresses of the day, and if he is allowed to do it he will have fewer of the screamy-kicky-meldowny times than if he is forced to spend time around people instead.

The NAS parent to parent helpline may be useful for you or your daughter in developing strategies that help your grandson; https://www.autism.org.uk/services/helplines/parent-to-parent.aspx

 
Also, what is the school doing to address this? Do they know about the diagnosis?
He should not be being suspended for reacting in the way he does to stress if it's an autism thing (which is very likely; it's common at that age to lash out when feeling unable to communicate their feelings any other way due to the communication issues that come with the autism). They need to be coming up with some strategies to help him de-stress at school and access his education as easily as his non-autistic peers. >>

Hope some of this helps.

Emma

Hi Gemma we are having great difficulty with my grandson he will be 6 in a few month. He has autism and delayed speech and language and delay social skills. My daughter is finding it very hard with him at the moment, he’s been suspended from school twice and it’s upset her. He is a big boy for his age and he’s just lashing out but he won’t stop till he gets tiered, that within a few minutes. He will go upstairs for hours if he’s got his phone or watch Netflix with out any bother. But won’t socialist with many ppl. He is temper is getting worse and he punches hard and kicks and scratch for just simply not getting his own way. Is there any help in the way of controlling his temper. 

Any help would be great. Thank you 

Hi guys,

Thank you very much for taking the time to reply my post! your advices/ suggestions are greatly appreciated! Stem cell is still the hope for thousands of parents with autistic children. Hopefully in the near future we wil find a solution! Please share if you have any thoughts or experiences!

Thanks,

Gemma

Hi gemma,

Very good advice from Mattbucks and Trainspotter. Do not waste your money on those type of treatments. Instead trust the doctors in the NHS to give you the best advice.

Take care , Laddie.

I can't comment on whether stem cell surgery works.  I am not a doctor nor a surgeon.  I know as a parent I would want the best for my children.

However, I do know the recognised treatment for 'naughty' children when I was young.  (For autism was not a condition that was recognised in those far off days, I am now 62, and we were simply classed as naughty).

We were punished.  We were made to do things we found really upsetting and punished for being what we now know as autistic.  And to some extent it worked.  It didn't cure me, and I am sure it didn't cure anyone else.  But it changed our behaviour somewhat.  In much the same way, a wild animal such as a lion can be made to perform circus tricks, but the animal is still wild and one day it decides to bite the trainers head off.  It is not the fault of the lion, it is a wild beast and has not be changed by its training.  It is just conditioned behaviour.

So despite my punishment, I was still autistic.  Yes I learned to adapt, but I still had the same underlying condition, ready to show itself at some indeterminate times which again I was duly punished for.

Stem cell may work.  I don't know.  But it may just change the personality of the child to be more compliant, not a cure but like the old surgical brain procedures of long ago, a procedure that actually changes the essential person.  And to me that is not something I would want for a child of mine.

I have led a life which I can say has been eventful, I have had times of severe depression, been misunderstood, not been able to express  myself.  But as I have said before, it is society that puts barriers in the way.  Left to my own devices I do  not suffer the same confusion I get from trying to fit in.  The best cure is not trying to make someone into something they are not.  Work on the strengths that your child has.  And with the support available now, I am sure that she will not have the same problems I had.

Hi Gemma

Stem cell treatments for ASD are a scam, they are a scheme designed to separate desperate parents from their hard earned cash, they are roughly as effective as burning some herbs and a small straw doll whilst dancing around in a circle and chanting to Lord Vader for salvation.

ASD is caused by genetics (it’s proven to be totally non-environmental, despite the idiot MMR doctor), your child’s brain is made of approximately one hundred billion brain cells, most of which will already be formed in a 12-year-old, some of which are still forming but can’t fundamentally be changed short of major neurosurgery.

I’m not going to go into how stem cells function, that information is available all over the internet but if you want start with Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stem_cell) however to really understand it you may well need a reasonable understanding of molecular biology.

There are medical applications for stem cells, there are no approved stem cell treatments for ASD, no working stem cell treatments for ASD and at the moment it looks highly unlikely that there is even a theoretical basis for stem cell treatment of ASD.

You have to accept that your daughter with her ASD will never be a hugely social person, that’s part of who she is, it is in every cell of her body, every neuro and synapse of her mind and that’s impossible to change, however the best thing you can do is to help her (and if that requires therapists then that £20,000 will come in far more useful) understand herself and create coping mechanisms and ways to deal with life. She won’t ever be normal, none of us with ASD will be, but she can be herself, she can be your daughter, she can have a happy and content life but the key to that is for her to be able to accept who she is and learn how to deal with the downsides of her ASD whilst maximising its upsides.

There are many things that can be done to help her, giving £20,000 away to charlatans and letting them inject her with unknown and medically and ethically unsound substances isn’t one of them.

Matt

This topic has been raised a few times before, so if you want to read these the search result in the community for "stem cell" is at community.autism.org.uk/.../stem cell

For instance, the first thread on this topic (spanning 2013 to late 2016) is at

community.autism.org.uk/.../stem-cell-treatment-autism

You will certainly find a range of (strong) views on this topic.