Posted Saturday, October 24th 2015 @ 1am

24 year old Sarah Hughes of Houston is a medical miracle, who is alive and active today thanks to major innovations in recent years in adult stem cell technology.

News Radio 1200 WOAI reports Sarah told her story this week to doctors in San Antonio who are part of the effort to develop stem cell technology.

Sarah has spent virtually her entire life in a hospital bed, suffering from a genetic disease called Systemic Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis.

Also called Still's Disease, SJIA symptoms include enlargement of the liver and spleen, swollen lymph nodes, increased white blood cell count, and extreme fatigue.

But the major problem inside Sarah's body was her immune system. Just the opposite of reduced immunity diseases like HIV, Sarah's immune system was in overdrive, attacking her food, her organs, and her body.

So serious was Sarah's condition that others could not share a toilet seat with her because of the amount of radiation in her urine.

At the age of 22, Sarah made the life or death decision to try a therapy made possible by Houston-based Celltex Therapeutics to be injected with millions of her own stem cells.

"Before, I was bed ridden, so this is a huge improvement," a lively Sarah told me. "And I'm eating. Before I wasn't able to eat, I was artificially fed through a tube or intravenously."

In the eleven months since the therapy, Sarah says the results have been amazing, including increased appetite, a decrease in the number of medications needed, and an end to the chemotherapy, which has allowed her to gain weight and grow her hair.

Sarah says her greatest accomplishment is to be able to ride horses, an activity she loves, every day.

It is an amazing new life for Sarah, who says after spending her formative years in a hospital, she is just now learning, at the age of 24, to do basic things, like how to behave in social settings.

"I've never been normal," she joked. "I'm having to learn everything for the first time, things like what I like to eat. I've never been able to eat, and I have never enjoyed eating."

Celltex is the largest stem cell bank in America, dedicated to allowing patients like Sarah to receive treatment through their own mesenchymal stem cells through a process patented by Celltex.

Treatment with stem cells is a new but rapidly growing medical field. Cells are either harvested from fat in the patient's body, or, if the patient has the possibility of inheriting a known genetic disease, cord blood from the umbilical cord, which is rich in stem cells, is harvested.

Research is underway to use stem cells in treatment of cancer, aging, and Alzheimer's Disease, as well as other degenerative conditions.

Sarah says if her case is normal, it is a medical field which has endless potential and promise.

The rest is here:
Woman Tells Doctors How Stem Cell Treatment Restored Her ...