Treatment dates – April 4 – 14, 2016

Was the administrative staff in Frankfurt helpful?    

Yes – Elka(the cook/massuse) helped us find meat (heart and kidney) that was not at the regular grocery stores and overall she was great, as she would bring us water/tea, clean up after us, and was always willing to answer questions or help out.

Bogdan (the driver) was always cheerful and helpful. It was really nice to have a driver one gets to and knows us and our needs vs having a random cab driver (which we had to have a few times as Bogdan was busy driving other patients to various places (airport, hospital, apartment).

The others were also helpful as needed and friendly.  They moved chairs around for me and other patients as I prefer to sit up rather than lie down etc.

It would be nice if they had a designated coordinator to ask questions of etc, as the staff/practitioners were all busy and seemed a bit stressed out at times.

Did you feel the doctor and nurses handling your care were competent care providers?  

Philip Battiade was not there, we have not met him. We’ve been told he is very positive and explains the process very well. Helena, Joichim, and Nadine all tried to explain things and answer our questions.  I don’t think they are used to a lot of questions.  There was a bit of a language problem at times and also they seemed very rushed as they were perhaps understaffed at times.  Overall they were friendly, showed concern, and seemed competent.

Was it easy to communicate with everyone at the clinic?

Fairly well.  Again, they were all very busy and sometimes the language was a barrier.

Were any questions and/or concerns you had during treatments addressed?

Mostly, they did not go into a lot of details.  They would tell us not to worry about details instead of answering our questions.  Although, when we pressed them they did do their best to help us understand.  I expected more information during the final report session.  I believe, again, that they were pressed for time and it seems they have a different philosophy about treatment. They just wanted me to go home and relax and not worry.

Did you have any type of bodywork? If so, which type?

Foot reflexology massage, ear acupuncture, lymph detox massage machine (it applies pressure up and down the lower body for 45 minutes and a patient there says that tri-athletes and ironman athletes use it to help recover from races).

Energy massage (she felt around the body for where energy was blocked and tried to release it), and electric muscle workout (like electro-stim but with the electrodes on both calves, quads, glutes, abs, lower back, chest, and biceps; and then you would flex muscles for 5 or so seconds and relax for maybe 5 seconds and repeat the cycle). The only one that was repeated was the Lymph detox massage.

What microbes did the Global Diagnostics find?    

They said they did not see the Lyme bacteria or any common co infections.

But I am not sure if that means I don’t have them.  I may have misunderstood but I believe they said that the machines in Germany cannot detect Lyme and the co-infections and inferred that the machines in Los Angeles can

One of them said the one in Germany either can’t diagnose you as a Lyme patient or can’t tell which stage of Lyme you are. But one of the other practitioners said it was common not to see those strains on the first scan and that they might show up in the final diagnosis. So it seems either they had different understandings of the machine or there was some language barrier or something.

It would be nice to have this explained but I guess we won’t worry about that for now (another patient had the same exact question as they didn’t mention anything about lyme or the common co-infections to her either).

They told me I had a few other bacteria that were common to most people.   I saw the list on the computer but they would not give me a written list.

Did the Global Diagnostics find any heavy metals? If so, did you receive treatment for those?    

They did not specifically tell me any details on heavy metals.  They did say that my body had a lot of toxins including heavy metals.  There is a percentage of 57% showing on the Global Diagnosis chart for heavy metals.

But they didn’t specify what type of heavy metals they might be nor did they think that any of the toxins in particular were something to focus on. It seems they think that their treatment will help rid of all toxins whether microbial, heavy metal, hormone mimickers, etc.
Did the Global Diagnostics find any health issue you weren’t aware of? If comfortable, please share.

None that they told me about. It basically picked up all the problems I felt I had I’ve never been able to get any diagnosis other than SIBO from regular doctors. So even though I was pretty positive that I had HPA (hypothalamus, pituitary, adrenal) axis problems, none of the endocrine doctors in the U.S. found any hormonal problems.

The Global Diagnostic machine did though, so it does seem pretty accurate at picking up where your body has weaknesses or where it is lacking energy. The Global Diagnostic machine also mentioned that it seems my body has a very hard time digesting carbs and protein; and then in the next line it said that it seems I cannot digest fats very well or at all either which is pretty much dead on for me and is my main problem.

Did your final Global Diagnostics still show Lyme and/or co-infections?

Same as above.  They did not even mention Lyme in the final session.

How did you feel during your treatments?

I was stressed out and exhausted before the treatment.  The plane ride/time change was exhausting even though I had a direct flight. I have a limited diet due to my digestion problems and arriving on a Sunday when all the grocery stores are closed was pretty stressful. I can’t eat out at restaurants.

They did supply our apartment with pretty good food, but I was allergic to a lot of it.  We had to be ready to go at 8:00 am most days and often did not get back to the apartment until 4:00 or later.  I had to shop and cook or prepare for meals each night for dinner, and breakfast and lunch the next day.

Then on the first Tuesday and last Thursday we had to be ready by 7:00 am and were driven for a 3 hour drive to and from Dr Pesic’s office for the stem cell treatment.  There really was no time to relax their either as we had to get back to Frankfurt to avoid the rush hour traffic.

They were pretty good at finding veins for the treatments although it is always painful for me to get IV’s started and they did break a few veins.  All in all it was pretty exhausting. They provided a lot of tea, daily green juice and bone broth for lunch. I believe they made it as comfortable as possible (although everyone agreed that their main chairs are not comfortable at all). The clinic is pleasant in general.

Did some or all of your main symptoms improve or resolve after treatment?

Immediately after, I felt no change. It has now been four weeks and I really don’t feel much change yet. Perhaps I have a bit more energy but it is really hard to tell as I have gone back to eating less overall and eating more carbohydrates (I was on a very low carb diet due to SIBO but no diet I’ve tried seems better than any other).

If you still have symptoms, please list your top 5-10 symptoms and rate each on a scale of 1-10. (1 = mild and 10 = severe)

1. Inability to digest food/intake calories   8
2. Constant burning pain from left temple to left hip    6/7
3. Lack of energy      5/6
4. Body can’t relax   7/8
5. shoulder/lower back/jaw pain  4/5

Please rate your overall well being immediately after treatment, using a percentage. For example, 100% would be in perfect health and symptom free.

Pretty much no change yet so maybe I’m 40% on bad days and 60% on good days.

What continuing care did the doctor recommend on your last day of treatment?

Helena and Joichim basically said to relax and to slowly resume normal activities such as: do yoga, exercise, go out with friends, and find a hobby.  Do a little more each day. This is also what Dr. Pesic said (the head doctor at the stem cell clinic). I would do all of the above if I had enough energy and I did all of the above before my health became too bad.

They said to stop taking digestive enzymes (which is odd as the diagnostic machine saw that I had difficulty digesting all macronutrients), multi vitamins, detox products and basically just stop taking all supplements.

They gave me

– four B12 shots to take home as my body was not getting it from my digestion.

– ZeobentMed for leaky gut and binding toxins.

-Psyllium Husk for constipation for at least six weeks.

On a scale of 1 – 10 (1 = terrible and 10 = excellent) please rate the accommodations Infusio provided?

8, although some of the other patient’s rooms weren’t as good as ours

We stayed at Couva boarding house in the Merianplatz area.  We had a good size one room with a microwave and oven.  We had a tub and shower combination.  It was on the 6th floor and the elevator only was out for one day during the 2 weeks. There was only one large bed for me and my mom but it was comfortable.

We had to buy a few supplies for the kitchen that we found pretty cheap at Oxfam which is a second hand store in the bottom of the building.  Other patients of Infusio that stayed at Couva did not have a microwave or oven or a shower. All the rooms seem to be different.   I think we got very lucky as I had to cook all my food. It was clean and modern.

There was a nice roof top garden with sitting area and the neighborhood was nice. The Basic grocery store was across the street, there were a lot of restaurants around, and a beautiful park about four blocks away.

On a scale of 1 – 10, (1 = terrible and 10 = excellent) how would your rate the overall experience at Infusio? 

6/7 – Accommodations were good as was the transport and food (except for not having food on Sunday due to my food allergies and stores being closed).  The staff were very nice and helpful and the staff was usually not too busy to answer questions and help. Would rate it higher but felt stressed out the whole time by the treatment and not sure if it is helping yet so hard to give it a final rating yet.

Please share any additional information you feel may be helpful to those considering treatment at Infusio.

In general, in case of an emergency, I would be sure that your phone works in Germany and that you know how to contact the Infusio personnel. I could only contact via phone, our driver and only by texting. I could only email the Infusio personnel.

I would suggest bringing about $200 Euros with you just in case. Be sure you have a chip credit card.  (one of my cards did not have a chip and so it did not work).

Consider arriving on a Saturday to get acclimated to the time and to shop on Saturday as grocery stores are closed on Sundays.

---

Wow, Brian, thanks so much for this extremely informative interview! Leave any questions or well wishes for Brian in the comments .