Katherine Greig's MS Treatment



Katherine was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) in September 2001. Married just one year at that time, Katherine began to learn a new normal. Katherine and her husband Daniel, have two active sons Joel (11) and Isaiah (4). Katherine has not allowed MS to impact her parenting. She is an amazing mom who always gives it her all. Katherine's MS has progressed to the point where she must rely on her scooter to do all of life's normal activities. This past summer she made the very hard decision to take medical leave from teaching and focus on the treatments that her body needs. Katherine, over the course of her research, has found an organization called Stemgenex. Stemgenex has developed a way to use Katherine's own stem cells to help heal the damage MS has caused. Stemgenex is not funded by the government or private institutions. Katherine was accepted into the trial testing for a stem cell transplant! This treatment will be completely out of pocket for the Grieg's. Because it is not covered by any insurance or government subsidies, they will need to cover $25,000 in costs. This amount does not include the loss of income this year. Katherine has touched the lives of many students over her career as a teacher. Let's help her get the care she needs so she can continue to be the person God wants her to be! She will be traveling to California this January for treatment.

I have included this great information from the Stemgenex website:
"Multiple sclerosis (MS) is widely believed to be an autoimmune condition – the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks, and subsequently damages, the ‘myelin sheath’ protecting nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. This damage causes messages to and from the brain to be slowed, distorted or stopped altogether. This is what leads to the symptoms of MS.

Damage to the myelin sheath is believed to cause ‘relapses’, or MS attacks. In these attacks, symptoms flare up and last for anything from 24 hours to several months. Over time, if nerve fibers themselves become damaged, or destroyed completely, this can lead to ‘progression’ of the MS and an increase in disability.

This treatment for multiple sclerosis is designed to target the myelin sheath by introducing adult mesenchymal stem cells past the blood brain barrier so they may differentiate into and repair the myelin sheath nerve cells. This process is called remyelination. Further, being that Multiple Sclerosis is an auto-immune condition, adipose derived mesenchymal stem cells have the ability to repair the immune system; keeping it from attacking itself. This process is referred to as immunomodulation. Through remyelination and immunomodulation, we hope to work toward improving the quality of lives of patients dealing with Multiple Sclerosis."