Stem cell therapy puts Tahoe woman back on her feet
By Kathryn Reed
South Tahoe's Cheryl Millham is pain free after treatment in Mexico. Photo/Kathryn Reed
Cheryl Millham’s pain couldn’t wait for President Obama to reverse the previous administration’s policy on stem cell therapy. Treatment obtained in Mexico nearly a year ago has the Lake Tahoe woman pain free, energized and sleeping at night.
“I’m so glad I didn’t go through with surgery,” Millham said this summer. “I’m so glad I did it this way.”
Millham and her husband, Tom, run Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care. She was delegating more of the rehab for the critters than she had been used to. Sometimes she needed help getting out of a chair and would then have to pause before walking.
About 19 years ago Millham went in for orthoscopic surgery on her right knee to repair a torn meniscus. The surgeon found zero cartilage between the joints. Physical therapy ensued. Still, she could not put the back of her knee flat when she laid down.
Supplements kept her moving, but the pain was constant.
Then the 69-year-old further messed up her left knee a couple summers ago. After an MRI, Dr. Terry Orr told her the arthritis and degenerative nature of the bones made her a candidate for knee replacement — on both knees.
Millham’s brother, Dr. Robert Bender, told her about a doctor in Mexico who does stem cell therapy. The three had a conference call with Dr. Alfredo Estrada.
“Ten minutes after the procedure I had no pain, I could walk and I could put my leg down,” Millham said.
Estrada works at Hospital San Pedro in Monterrey, Mexico. According to his website www.stemcellmexico.com, he “has developed a propriety regenerative purification health program consisting of a combination of ozone therapy and cord blood stem cell implantation.”
Tom Millham chronicled the experience at http://tomintahoe.blogspot.com/. The benefits of stem cell therapy as outlined on Estrada’s website parallel what the National Institutes of Health says on its site. Estrada uses cells from the placenta, not the embryo.
Other benefits to the treatment include fewer aches from arthritis and age spots on the back of her hands and face disappearing.
“I think I know why they don’t want (stem cell therapy) in the U.S. I’m not on medication and there is no reason to be on mediation again. And I don’t think the pharmaceutical companies would like that,” Millham said.
