She Was Blind For 5 Years But A Controversial Treatment Let Her See Again

It’s easy to judge a controversial treatment like stem cell therapy when it has zero bearing on your own life, but when this woman woke up one day and her entire world was gone, she was prepared to try anything to get her vision back.

In 2009, Vanna Belton was training to become a police officer when she started to notice her vision was blurry. Just a few weeks later, she was almost entirely blind, and doctors had no answer for her.

Belton has been determined to get her sight back ever since and has even tried Chinese herbs and acupuncture, but to regain her independence throughout those five years, she learned to use a cane, public transportation, and technological aids.

Eventually, Belton stumbled upon Dr. Jeffrey N. Weiss who was conducting a stem cell study for blind patients in Florida. Weiss’ study was completely unorthodox with no university or government affiliation, but Belton paid the $20,000 and signed up for the trial.

Her doctors tried to dissuade her from the highly controversial and misunderstood treatment, which involved injecting her own stem cells into her eyes around the retina, in the retina, and directly into the optic nerve.

Weiss made no promises on the treatment, as he didn’t fully understand how it would work, but when Belton was able to focus on a license plate on a car outside one day, she was stunned. “When I realized I could see the license plates, we started walking around the neighborhood reading them,” Belton said. “We drove around and read store signs. The Pennsylvania Dutch Market. The tanning salon.”

“We didn’t know how penicillin worked for many years, but it saved many lives in the meantime,” Weiss said. “It is hubris to think that something can’t work until you understand how it does. It is more important what the patient sees, not what I see.”

She Was Blind For 5 Years But A Controversial Treatment Let Her See Again is an article from: LifeDaily