Exosome Therapy at Infusio Frankfurt

Last month, I headed to Germany where I received exosome therapy at Infusio, Frankfurt.

For anyone new to my blog, I went through Infusio’s Lyme Program in October-November 2017. This culminated in receiving a stem cell treatment called Stromal Vascular Fraction (SVF).

I had my stem cell procedure on the 1st of November 2017.

You can find all my posts about my treatment at Infusio and recovery afterwards here.

My Recovery Following SVF

I had an intense year of recovery following my stem cell treatment. It was very up and down but, overall, I made great progress. During the better spells, my health was the best it had been in years.

Unfortunately for me, over the past few months, I’ve had the return of problematic symptoms.

I first noticed it at the end of November last year, where I felt I was experiencing the return of fatigue. Come December, I then got full-blown flu and I didn’t seem to fully recover from that.

All of this combined with pushing myself too much resulted in me feeling rather poorly at the beginning of 2019. You can read more about all of this in my February and March health updates.

Hormone Issues

Within all of this, I had also gone to see my GP about hormonal issues I’d be having. If you have followed my progress over the past year you will have seen me talking about struggling with my hormones.

On my GP’s advice, I decided to try the mini pill. I had reached a point where I was really struggling with my periods and it upset me that I’d be doing so well only to tank each month.

I was feeling desperate and figured it was worth a try and, in the meantime, I had some investigations done. All of which came back fine.

I also had a gynaecology appointment that didn’t really lead me anywhere (and please no unsolicited advice about this).

My Experience With the Mini Pill

I stuck the pill out for three months and, though it seemed to help initially, I came to realise two things.

My problems with fatigue started about a month after I began taking the pill. I also remember that pretty much straight away my stamina was affected and my heart seemed to be working a lot harder than it needed to.

I remember going snowboarding after starting the pill and finding it so much harder than just a couple of weeks previous. I had assumed I had gotten carried away and gone back too soon.

However, I noticed my heart rate was higher in general. I’d go to brush my teeth and have a heart rate of over 100, which was much too high for me and was reminiscent of the problems I used to have with dysautonomia.

I couldn’t but help connect it with the pill as that was the only thing that had changed.

And– after two-three months– I didn’t feel like myself at all. I had lost all optimism, became a very glass-half-empty sort of person and felt sad most of the time.

The pill got binned (figuratively speaking). I didn’t even want to try another one to see if it suited me any better.

Return of Histamine Issues

In addition to all of this (as if this wasn’t enough!), I had the return of histamine intolerance symptoms. Again, this was something I struggled with after my stem cell treatment.

I reached a point where I felt everything had got a bit out of control and I needed an intervention to get myself back on track.

After speaking with the medical team at Infusio, I decided that this intervention would come in the form of exosome therapy.

What Is Exosome Therapy?

If you want more information on exosome therapy, I suggest getting in contact with Infusio. They can tell you more about it and how it could potentially help you if you are interested.

I, of course, have no medical training what-so-ever so this is just my basic understanding of it.

My understanding is that exosomes are small vesicles that cells use to communicate with each other. They carry information from cell to cell and tell cells what to do.

They can even insert information into cells. Much research has focussed on exosomes ability to transport medication to specific cells.

Exosomes play an important Role in Stem Cell Therapy

I believe it’s actually exosomes that tell stem cells what to do, so they play a significant role in stem cell therapy too.

I was told that having exosome therapy would essentially be similar to a second round of stem cells. Except, they would help to calm mast cell activity (i.e. help to reduce the problems I was having with histamine reactions).

The theory is that exosomes can help to stabilise or normalise dysfunctional mast cells.

A big sticking point for me before deciding to have exosome therapy was that they are derived from laboratory mesenchymal stem cells; a line of lab cells that originate from placental/umbilical tissue.

In other words, they are not your own cells.

My Concerns

When researching stem cell therapies, I decided to have Stromal Vascular Fraction as I felt that using my own stem cells was the safest option. My personal view was that using donor cells came with too much risk attached.

However, I learned that the likelihood of rejection with Infusio’s exosomes is minimal. This is because exosomes are not cells and do not contain any immune markers on their surface.

Additionally, exosomes do not multiply so there is no risk of tumours (that is present with umbilical stem cells).

The biggest benefit of using the lab-derived exosomes is that they may contain information my body is missing. I felt like they could hold the key for further healing.

After hearing this (and the answers to even more questions I had for Dr Bijan), I felt that exosomes were a good option for me.

I understood that healing afterwards could be a little challenging, though less so than SVF. Exosomes apparantly work a little faster too.

Whereas stem cells reach their peak of activity around 100 days, it’s more like 60 for exosomes. However, like stem cells, the healing benefits continue for months afterwards.

My hope is that– over time– exosome therapy would help to stabilise my health.

Exosome therapy At Infusio Frankfurt

As I had already been through the Lyme program, I only required a two-day follow-up at Infusio. So it was a very quick visit to Frankfurt.

I am going to share my experience with exosome therapy at Infusio Frankfurt. However, I will say to any other follow-up patients that your experience may be different.

At this point, what we each need will be different and the treatment we have will vary.

For reference, I had my exosomes at 16 months post-stem cell treatment.

Day 1 at the Clinic

I had my exosome therapy on the first day I was at the clinic. After a consult with Nadine, she decided that it would be good for me to have an IV that essentially calmed my nervous system.

Although I was presenting with fatigue, she felt that giving me energy IVs (such as NAD) would be too stimulating. I needed the opposite.

I had a quick session on the laser bed and then it was time to receive my IV.

During my IV, I received my exosomes. It was rather uneventful, to be honest!

The exosomes look like a clear liquid and are injected in via the IV. I went a bit sleepy and headachey (though I feel this could have been the IV I had rather than the exosomes).

Afterwards, I didn’t feel much of a difference. Which worried me a bit because I felt an immediate difference after my SVF procedure and ACT treatment.

Day 2 at the Clinic

On the second day, I had another session on the laser bed and one IV. I then asked for a Myer’s cocktail IV as I knew that made me feel good and that was it.

I was sent home with a peptide treatment (BPC-157) and low-dose naltrexone to try.

How I’ve Been Since my Exosome Therapy at Infusio Frankfurt

It’s now been four weeks since my exosome therapy. I feel like I have followed a similar pattern to how things were after my SVF.

The first thing I noticed on returning home was feelings of euphoria. I had this intense joy for life that I had immediately following SVF too.

A few days after treatment I had some really good days where symptoms were minimal and my energy was good. Following this, I then had a week of feeling super sleepy at points each day.

Histamine Reactions

What surprised me was that I was also having histamine reactions (itching, sinus pain and a sore throat). I was feeling disheartened by this as the exosome therapy was meant to do the opposite!

It took a couple of weeks but I finally figured out I was reacting badly to the low-dose naltrexone. When it came to upping my dose, I noticed it was making my mouth and throat feel red raw and I became itchy pretty much immediately afterwards.

I stopped it straight away and the histamine reactions stopped.

I have still had a few reactions but I am realising I need to be more careful and avoid certain foods. My two biggest triggers are chocolate and tomatoes.

I’ve been Up & DOwn

Since then, I’ve been up and down. Some days I’ve felt pretty good and others I’ve not been feeling so great.

I will say that I no longer have the heavy flu-like feeling I had prior to exosome therapy. But there have still been days I’ve felt poorly in myself.

This past week I felt like I was coming down with the cold. Then, at the weekend, I thought I had picked up a stomach bug as I had intense cramps and nausea.

I felt like I had a lot of inflammation in my body too.

Although exosome therapy is anti-inflammatory in nature, I believe inflammation is a necessary part of healing as your body can’t repair without it. And, this can be rough as it makes you feel like shit.

On reading my updates after SVF, though, I came to realise a similar thing happened around the same time following SVF. Which is either a weird coincidence or it must be something healing related.

I’m opting to choose to think the latter. Especially as I’ve had some muscle twitching, tingling and buzzing, which are all signs that something is happening underneath.

It’s Mentally Challenging

It has been challenging dealing with the ups and downs, though the downs are nowhere near as intense as they were following my SVF treatment.

As I said, it’s as though I am following the same pattern… just a mellower version.

The only thing I’d say has been a big problem since exosome treatment is brain fog. My memory is absolutely shocking at the moment!

Again, I’m being positive about this and think choosing to believe it is healing related. Especially as I’ve been a bit headachy too.

I am having to remind myself that going through exosome therapy is essentially like a second-round of SVF and I’ll face similar challenges. That having days where I don’t feel well can actually be related to healing processes within the body.

It’ll be interesting to see how the next few months go and how I feel. I’m hoping that exosome therapy at Infusio, Frankfurt will have been a worthwhile treatment.

Time will tell.

Planning My Future

Despite having days where I don’t feel good, I think it’s important to point out that I am still functioning relatively okay.

I’m managing to get about my daily life. I can just feel a bit shit as I do so.

I am resting as much as I need to, though, and not doing any exercise at all some days. And, I have chosen to spend the odd day here and there resting in bed (though that’s very different from being stuck in bed).

However, I have also been working away slowly and very soon I hope to open an Etsy shop.

So, although things are challenging at times, it’s a huge positive that I feel ready to take this step towards creating a future for myself.

Following My Progress

I will continue to keep writing updates on how I am doing after exosome therapy at Infusio Frankfurt. However, I am not sure how frequent the blog posts will be.

I found it really intense writing monthly updates after my stem cell therapy and I don’t think I’ll be as thorough as that this time around.

So, if you want to keep up-to-date with how I am doing, the best way is to follow me on Instagram. I share quick updates on there most days.

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