My Stem Cell Journey for Rheumatoid Arthritis: Part 4

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Hello, I am Joshua P. Warren, and this is my stem cell journey for rheumatoid arthritis part four. I am back in the United States, and this is two days after my last stem cell treatment in Panama. And of course, I you would not believe how many people are contacting me every day. How do you feel? How do you feel? How do you feel? And I tell everybody, like, look, I there's no way I uh I can respond to everybody. That's why I'm doing these updates through my Twitter slash uh X, you know, and also these occasional podcasts here at Joshua P. Warren Daily. So uh I am just delighted and and very honored that you uh care uh how how I'm feeling, but um just realize I you know don't get your feelings hurt if I can't reply to everybody. That's why I'm doing these updates. So I hope that you'll just just stick to that. Um okay, so let me tell you how I am feeling, and then I'm going to get into some more details, more technical stuff about what I've continued learning about this process. For one thing, I went to a place called Stem Cell Institute in the country of Panama. Their website is cellmedicine.com, C-E-L-L, cellmedicine.com. Uh I've said this before. I have no relationship with them. I'm not being sponsored by them. I haven't gotten a discount from them or a break or anything, no special treatment whatsoever. So I'm able to tell you truthfully what has happened to me, what my experience has been. I spent almost $30,000 out of pocket to have this stem cell treatment for my rheumatoid arthritis. And I mean, you know, insurance doesn't cover that. I mean, I literally just forked over uh almost $30,000 for the treatment. And one of the reasons that I went there, I've done a lot of homework for many years, and everybody says this is the place where they have the best cutting-edge stem cell technology. And you may have heard some of the big celebrities talk about it and rave about it, people like Tony Robbins, the motivational speaker, or Mel Gibson, or Joe Rogan. There are lots of celebrities, and I and I bring that up only because these are people who have the money to go wherever they want and do whatever they want. And they they choose to go to this place, and they say that it's the best, and they have these astounding success stories, astounding success stories. So um, and there are a lot of other celebrities who go there uh that uh don't want to make their condition public. So, I mean, I I know about who they are and you would know their names, but obviously I'm not going to spill those beans, I'm going to preserve privacy. So let me just tell you in a nutshell how I'm feeling today, and then I'll give you more information about exactly what's been happening. So, two days after my last treatment, I can tell you that I woke up this morning and I definitely am feeling better. Here's what I mean by that. Often when I wake up, I have a lot of sore joints. I'm talking about my fingers, I have soreness in my neck, I have soreness in my uh rhomboids, which are the muscles around my shoulder blades, and uh a lot of pain in my lower back, as well as a sciatica, which is like a really sharp pain that shoots down my uh right leg. And today when I woke up, I did not have any pain in any of my joints. Um my fingers were fine, my neck was fine, my shoulders were fine, my back still hurts, though. Um the lower back, that's the one, that's the stubborn part. Uh I am I also, when you have these uh this kind of a condition, like room toward arthritis, a lot of times it makes you feel real tired and fatigued. I also feel like that my energy has been boosted and I have great energy. Do I feel like I'm Superman all of a sudden? No, I don't. I don't think it wasn't like that I snapped my fingers or they snapped their fingers and something magically transformed me. But they have told me that the back thing in particular should improve over the coming weeks. And I'll explain a little bit about why that is. In fact, you know, uh there are you hear people say, like, oh, I got these stem cells, and within a day or two, I felt so much better. For me, it has been a very gradual thing. Um, you know, like for the the second day, I didn't feel any different than the first day. Then the third day I started feeling better. And now I can tell you that I feel like I am improving, but it is it is a gradual process. And I'm not, you know, sure that I might not, you know, I'm not sure if I'm gonna wake up tomorrow and have pain again. I just don't know. But what I can tell you is that I have not been taking the normal medication that I take for rheumatoid arthritis just to test this out. And I woke up today again without the kinds of pain that I'm used to. And here's what I mean by that. Like sometimes, I don't know if you know anybody with rheumatoid arthritis, but you you might feel okay one day, and then the next day you wake up and it feels like somebody has hit your pinky finger with a hammer, and it's absolutely throbbing, and it's you can't use your hand. And then, you know, the next day your pinky might be fine, but on the other hand, it feels like somebody's hit your ring finger or your middle finger or your thumb with a hammer, and it's throbbing. Sometimes you wake up in the middle of the night and your hands are inflamed, and uh at that point it's difficult to sleep. You know, you you can't roll over and adjust your pillow. They're going, ah. So it's it's it's uh it was really nice today to wake up and not have any of those joint pains. And then I actually took a little walk today, and like I say, I'm waiting on this lower back thing here uh to work out. But at this point, I have high hopes, and I want to tell you a little bit more about what they did because all right, when the the actual treatment that I received was over a three-day period. On day one of the treatment, they gave me three different things. They gave me an IV and they injected millions of stem cells into me. And they also, through an IV, injected uh what they call MTF. Now I'm going to explain to you what that is best I can in a moment here. And then after that, on day one, they gave me some injections into parts of my body where I have particular sore spots, like my neck, like my rhomboids, like my lower back. They took a big needle and they they injected um stem cells and MTF into these parts of my body. That was the first day of treatment. The second day of treatment, they um they gave me an IV with um with with stem cells and with MTF. And then they gave me a nasal spray of MTF. They literally, you know, they the the doctor put a little thing in each of my nostrils and squirted just a liquid up there, like water, that had MTF in it. Um that goes past the the brain blood barrier, because basically, like stem cells are apparently too big to get into the the part of your brain. And so they squirt this MTF in there, which is again, I'm gonna explain best I can what that is in a minute. And then on day number three, uh, they did pretty much the same thing. They gave me an IV with stem cells and MTF, and then they once again squirted some MTF up my nose. Each day, the amount of stem cells I received increased. So on day number two, I got twice as many as day number one, and then I got the most on day number three. So that's what I did for rheumatoid arthritis down there at Stem Cell Institute. And uh this is they they give you what are called uh mesynchymal stem cells. Now, um I have called I've accidentally called these mesenchymal before, but they're called mesenchymal stem cells. And let me tell you something, and I I I cannot say this enough. I am not a doctor, I have no medical experience, I I am in no way uh in a position to give you medical advice. Uh, I am just telling you sort of about my experience as a patient and doing my best to learn about this and get accurately informed and tell you what my experience has been. So that's my disclaimer. Don't take any of this uh at face value in terms of your what it may or may not do for you. Everybody is unique. This is an experimental process that is not currently fully approved by the FDA here in the United States. It is my understanding that you can still go to that that here in the U.S., it is it is not entirely unavailable here, but because there are some trials that are being done that you can apply for, but it's not the kind of thing where just anybody can go just like I did in Panama and pay the price and get the treatment if you are eligible, because you still have to apply and you have to be a good candidate. And you know, if you don't know what I'm talking about, go back and listen to part one of this series where I talk about what I did to apply, and it was a big pain in the ass, frankly. So um, all right, so that's what happened to me over three days. But here's the thing that I want to I want to sort of explain to you. So and and I'm only I'm I'm explaining this the best I can. And and and I'm not promising you this is 100% accurate, but there are different kinds of stem cells, and they do different kinds of things. And I'm only going to talk about what I got. So these are called uh mesynchimal stem cells, and they are taken from the umbilical cord of uh of a woman who has just given birth. These are fresh, and if you want to know more about that, again you can go back and listen to other parts of the series. Now, um from what I understand, the stem cells work because they not only find problem areas and attach to them, but ultimately they produce these substances that the stem cell institute calls MTFs. And that stands for mesenchymal trophic factors. These are little components that the cells produce that signal healing in your body. So, in other words, the cells produce these materials that stimulate healing in certain parts of the body. But you also can just take those parts and directly inject those. So it is my understanding that what they do at the Stem Cell Institute is they do a combination, they give you stem cells that will attach to problem areas and eventually start producing the MTF. But um in the meantime, they can also just directly squirt some of that MTF into problem areas to get a faster result. Now, if you look this up, it says what MTFs do, they consist of extracellular vesicles, cytokines, and growth factors. And I'm like, okay, what does that mean? What did I have no idea? Would you know what an extracellular vesicle is? So, all right, so if we look this up, it says here, okay, first let me just start by saying, going back to what an MTF is, they have these cells there that they call golden cells. And they say our golden cells derived MTF contains important healing molecules that support the body in multiple ways. It contains um an all-natural blend of healing molecules, includes cytokines, growth factors, and tens of billions of exosomes. These have been widely studied. Okay, and again, I was like, what is all that? All right, so an extracellular vesicle, these are tiny lipid-bound packages. So I guess it means like a little blob of fat that's naturally released by cells into the body's fluids, acting as the cellular postal service, they transport proteins, lipids, and genetic material from one cell to another, serving as a vital communication system for maintaining health or signaling disease. Okay, so extracellular vesicles are like these little packets of information, little packets of chemicals, I guess, um that deliver these things that trigger your body to start healing. One of them is called exosomes, and these are microscopic bubble-like structures released by cells that act as biological messengers, they transport proteins, lipids, and genetic material like RNA between cells, effectively coordinating cellular repair, tissue regeneration, and immune responses. Now look, I'm trying to like figure out how to as I'm learning this stuff, I'm trying to figure out how to reduce this down into language that we can all understand here. Because you know, this is cutting edge, you know, breaking breaking technology here. And um and there are a lot of there are a lot of variables. They talk about cytokines being in this. Let's see what that is exactly. What are cytokines? They are small specialized proteins that act as chemical messengers in the body, produced primarily by immune cells. They allow cells to communicate with one another to coordinate immune responses, control inflammation, and regulate cell growth. So it says here on the internet when your body encounters a threat like a virus or a bacteria or an injury, immune cells release cytokines into the bloodstream. These proteins then bind to specific receptors on target cells, triggering a cascade of biological actions. Ultimately, it's the it's it stimulates tissue repair. All right. So again, let me try to put this in a nutshell. So the stem cells, I guess whenever you have a problem, like something is wrong in your body, you have inflammation, you have a pain or whatever, the reason you know that is because your body is sending some kind of a signal out saying, oh, something's wrong here. Well, these stem cells can detect that. So these stem cells they go to these areas where there's a problem, they gradually sort of attach to it, and then over time, as they develop, they release these things, these little chemicals and stuff, these little biological things. I don't know. And this is these this material is what actually triggers the healing response in the body. And those things are called, are what the Stem Cell Institute calls MTFs. All right. So that's like a generic term for all these little chemicals that the stem cells release. So again, it's like when you go in, they they do two things. They give you injections of MTFs, which are going to start going to work immediately, but they also give you stem cells, which are gonna take a little bit of time to develop before they start releasing the long-term MTFs. So, in other words, it's like, okay, maybe the reason that my neck and my uh rhomboids feel better is because they injected MTF right in there and it went right to work. But in my lower back, they mainly injected stem cells, and it's gonna take a few weeks for those cells to really take hold and start producing the MTF. So basically, what does the work here ultimately, if I understand this correctly, is the MTF. And so those are all we're working with here are stem cells, which attach and are they're like your long-term supply of MTF, and then the temporary temporary MTF that they give you in the meantime to like help you feel better while the stem cells are are developing in your body. Uh, and so uh whether you're getting the stem cells through an IV into your bloodstream that goes all throughout your body and hits your lungs first, by the way, or um or you're getting the MTF, um, they're just kind of giving you like a combination of those things. And uh let's see, it says our clinic has used the MTF on its own, or in combination with our golden cells treatments for many years in conditions like arthritis, spinal cord injury, autism, age-related weakness, sports injuries, and general wellness. So, did you catch that? It says once again, MTF can be used independently or alongside our stem cell therapies. So you could go in there, I guess, and they could just be like, oh, you got a problem? Here, let's squirt some of this MTF in there, and that's gonna signal your body to start healing that, or they can give you stem cells, which will eventually start producing MTF, but their whole thing is like, oh, we have this special system worked out where we're gonna give you a combination of both, both the cells and the MTF, so that um the MTF is gonna like tide you over until the cells kick in and start making MTF long term, which hopefully, depending on your condition, could go on for years. So they're telling me that like some of the immediate relief that I have is probably coming from the direct MTF that they gave me, that has immediately told my body, heal this area, here, heal this area. But for like a more problem area like my lower back, it's gonna take some time for um the stem cells to really start producing the MTF down there that should make a big difference. Um I think that is the best I can describe that for now. Um because, and again, you know, do I feel better? Yes. Do I feel like I could go and run a marathon or something? No. Do I feel like I'm 25 years old again? No. But do I feel better than I did yesterday? Yes. Do I feel better than I did five days ago? Yes, much better. So um, I have high hopes, as I say. Now, having told you that, let me play devil's advocate for a minute as well. Because I told you, however, this turns out, I'm going to be honest with you, and I'm going to tell you at some point like, would I do this again? Was it worth going on this big ass trip down to Panama and spending all this money? Was it worth it? Well, here's one thing to keep in mind. They tell you, understandably, when you're about to start this this journey, that everything is going to work better for you if you really start hard trying to live a healthier lifestyle. So that means if you if you're eating crap food, you know, cut that out, cut out, you know, the the shitty junk food, right? Um and and the fatty stuff and start, you know, eat healthy. If you drink alcohol, stop drinking alcohol. If you smoke cigarettes, stop smoking cigarettes. They say that's the worst thing you can do. That smoke cigarettes like smoking will just. outright kill stem cells. This other stuff degrades them, but smoking is the worst thing. And so so they tell you like before you do this, make some lifestyle changes. Eat healthier, don't smoke, don't drink, you know, relax, all this kind of stuff. And then and of course you continue that through the process of getting the stem cells. And then you're supposed to continue that afterward as the stem cells are kicking in. And that makes perfect sense. But but this is just a consideration. They're telling you it's important for you to get your body in a healthy position so these stem cells work. But then it makes you wonder well like well if I'm feeling better how much of me feeling better is coming from these common sense lifestyle improvements that I've been making to do this and how much is coming from what they provide? So in other words it's kind of like as an you know just a hypothetical hypothetical let's say like I say to you I have this magical water that I'm going to give you that's going to make you feel great. But before you get it here's what you have to do you have to uh you have to exercise every day you have to uh eat healthy only eat vegetables you can't drink you can't smoke you you know you have to get in good shape and then and then you know uh I'm I'm going to give you the water and now you're going to feel great. And uh but and then you're thinking well maybe I I'm just feeling maybe I'm just feeling great because you've also like convinced me to become a healthier person. I know that's a complicated subject for some reason it reminds me of the old folk tale called Stone Soup. You know this is like in the Middle Ages in Europe or something like that where uh there's a a poor starving man and he's trying to figure out how to get food and he goes through a village and nobody wants to have anything to do with them and he mentions to a lady hey uh uh do you have a pot? I'm going to make some stone soup and she goes what and he says yeah I'm going to make some stone soup it's delicious you've never had stone soup and she goes no and he says yeah give me a pot I'll show you how to make it so she gives him a pot he fills it with water from the stream he grabs a big rock he puts it in there and he lights a fire and he's and it starts bubbling and he says oh this is going to be so good and he goes you know the only thing that would make it better is if we had some uh potatoes and she said oh I've got some potatoes he says oh great grab those potatoes throw them in there you know and then now it starts smelling good and people are coming around what you making oh stone soup oh yeah it's gonna be great oh boy it'd be even better if we had some carrots oh I've got some carrots really oh throw those carrots in there and this continues until finally you know some guys like oh I got some some pork and next thing you know they've made this actual stew with all these goodies based upon the premise of this of the stone and it was the best soup they ever had. So there there's it kind of makes you wonder a little bit about like you know they convince you to become a healthier person so these stem cells work and then you start feeling better and you go well maybe I would have just felt this good if I just started being healthier I don't know where we draw the line on that. But I what I can tell you is they say that over the next few weeks that I my back should be feeling better. And um but you know you you should feel improvements I've been told for like six months. And you know what in around six months I might I'm gonna be 50 years old. My birthday is October 25th and on the October 25th of the year 2026 I'll be 50 years old and that will be a very good time for me to sit down and say look it's been around six months uh since I had the stem cell treatment let me tell you what my life is like and uh I've made a lot of detailed notes before I got this about like you know things that bothered me and uh took a lot of pictures of myself and everything and so I'll be able to sit down come 50th birthday time and maybe sort of evaluate how all this is uh how all of this has progressed and and whether or not I feel like that uh the stem cell experience made uh made the impact that I was hoping. But so far like I say uh it's only been two days since my last treatment and if I'm already feeling better then that's a good sign. So I will have many more details to give you in the near future uh that's this is probably the last update that I'm gonna give you for a little while but you never know so if you want to stay on top of this look um however you're listening to this podcast right now it doesn't matter what platform that you're using just follow this podcast or subscribe to it or whatever uh and then also I strongly advise you to go to my X account formerly Twitter just type in joshua p warren twitter or go to x.com slash joshua p warren and um it costs you no no money at all it's free it's easy it's simple it's fast uh follow me there you can even uh have click notifications so you get notified when I have a new one finished and uh I'll keep you updated uh and you know aside from the stem cell stuff I I post all kinds of interesting material uh through through Twitter as well so uh that's how you can keep up with all this and just you know all I can tell you once again is that um it was a big big pain in the ass to fly all the way down to Panama and do this and it cost a lot of money but if I continue feeling better then it was worth every penny so stay tuned and I'll keep you posted. Oh by the way uh they say that when you do this a lot of times some people feel sick during the process like they might feel that they have flu like symptoms or they get nauseated or something. That never happened to me. I was concerned about it because I I I'm I'm a very sensitive ma'am. I'm sensitive naked man. But no I didn't have any issues like that. And uh in fact uh I mean well like at one point I I kind of thought maybe I was having a little bit of attention headache or something but I don't know I took a couple ibuprofen and I was fine so don't let that uh frighten you and and and again I'm only talking about my experience with this place and everybody's different so uh who knows whatever your case is whatever your situation is it may or may not be like mine but all I can do is tell you about my uh my time all right my friends that's it for this particular update go to joshuapwarren.com and sign up for my free and spam free e-newsletter there and you will instantly receive some uh free online goodies there's a you'll get an email an automated email and you'll get links to some free online goodies from me just for signing up joshua p warren.com again it takes you two seconds okay you don't have to put in anything but your email address and hit submit I am Joshua P. Warren thank you for listening thank you for your interest and support thank you for staying curious and I will talk to you again soon