4/6/2023 0 Comments Sugar rush shelton![]() “Brian's very lucky that he has not had complications with immunosuppression,” Hsueh said. People with organ transplants and stem cell transplants take the medicines to prevent transplant rejections. Shelton now takes 10 immunosuppression pills every day to stop his immune system from damaging the new, healthy cells. Melton was one of the leaders in this development, that it actually works in people and can provide, as we said, a functional cure for the disease.” “We're all very, very excited about this progress because this gives us hope that using these stem cells and developing into islets, of which Dr. “The whole world of diabetes is rejoicing about Brian's results,” Dr. Willa Hsueh is an endocrinologist from The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center who was not involved in the study Shelton went through, but is working on a similar study with the company ViaCyte. Regardless, diabetes experts across the nation are amazed.ĭr. It’s a five year study and will enroll as many as 17 patients with severe cases of Type 1 diabetes. This trial is still in its beginning stage. It's just completely unbelievable for both of us.” We're not always just thinking where's your number at? What do you need to eat? How much insulin do you need right now? A normal person is like between 70 and maybe like 120 and that's a pretty wide range, but those are good numbers and now he is in that zone and it's unbelievable. Yeah, gave me my life back.”Ĭindy said he's like a whole new person and that it's changed his whole outlook. “And I understand why my doctor does because I'm part of him now. “It's one reason enough to just smile all day long,” Brian said. He still wears the glucose monitor and checks it often during the day, but every time he reads the number he smiles. Shelton’s body is now able to control its own insulin and blood sugar levels. That was like I think the first time I told him in the morning, I said, ‘You do realize you've gone five days with not a drop of insulin.' And he, back in the day he was doing probably between 30 and 40 units a day.” The really big changes happened around the three-month mark. “Even right from the start, it was different already," Cindy said. Shelton was the first human patient, which is why he wears a shirt that says “first in human.”Īlmost immediately, the Sheltons saw a difference. He received about half of the target dose. On June 29, Brian got an infusion of lab-grown stem cells. “Because like I said, if you weren't monitoring him, you know, 24/7…what kind of life is there for him or me or anybody involved with him?" ![]() “It was like how much worse could he get?” Cindy said. The Sheltons jumped at the chance to join. In the trial, Vertex said the patient receives an infusion of new cells - grown from stem cells - that help to restore the body’s natural ability to create and regulate that insulin, essentially giving the body back the cells it’s lost. Douglas Melton and at Semma Therapeutics, which was acquired by Vertex in 2019. It's building on work started in the laboratory of Dr. Vertex aims to address the underlying cause of Type 1 diabetes by developing therapies to potentially replace the insulin-producing cells that are destroyed. In people with Type 1 diabetes, the body destroys the cells in the pancreas that create insulin. And you know, maybe in between there, you'd get to do a load of laundry.” The life-changing clinical trialĮarlier this year, they spotted a clinical trial by Vertex Pharmaceuticals for patients with Type 1 diabetes. ![]() And that was the whole day cooking and giving shots. “If they're really low, time to go cook a meal. “Every day was exhausting because you could maybe do something for about a half-hour then it was like put everything down, go see where his numbers are,” Cindy Shelton said. Shelton currently lives with his ex-wife, Cynthia, who goes by Cindy. He’s had an ambulance called for him hundreds of times, and even passed out on his motorcycle and crashed into a wall in 2020. ![]() “I was a mail carrier for 30 years, and I would start walking up the street and then by the time I get to the end of the street I would pass out and start seizing right on somebody's front yard, and I couldn't get up,” Shelton said.
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