Nerve damage can be healed. I wish there was more focus -- or at least equal focus -- on that fact. I've healed minor nerve damage in myself. This would be a matter of scale. A lot of the information already exists and even main stream medicine is working on regenerative medicine. It would just need to be ramped up, basically. And it would give better quality of life and be cheaper in the long run to just repair the body.
It's not any one thing I did. Nearly 11 years ago, I spent 3.5 months mostly bedridden and then was diagnosed with "atypical cystic fibrosis". During the course of my long decline, I had lost a number of teeth and was left with nerve damage to one side of my face. I also had a fall while very ill and was left with a numb spot on the top of my foot (and other foot issues). My main focus was on a) killing infection and b) reversing the pathology of my genetic disorder. As a side effect, the numb spot went away and I have partially regained some of the lost control over my left cheek.
My experience has been that removing enough environmental stressors (like toxic household cleaners), killing infection, and providing sufficient nutritional support will allow the body to heal, even when one has been very severely damaged. As best I can tell, some of the key nutritional supports for healing my nerves were glyconutrients, Celtic sea salt, and the right oils. I became fairly fanatical about avoiding oils I did not tolerate well and consuming adequate quantities of oils I did tolerate well, which for me included organic butter and organic coconut oil. I find that peanut oil does incredibly evil things to my body. There are a few others I try to avoid at all times and there are a number of oils that I tolerate okay, occasionally, in small quantities. As I heal, my tolerances for things change.
I took things to real extremes for a time. I did a great deal of research and addressed a long list of nutritional deficiencies that I identified symptomatically. Then I researched which chemical form of various supplements were the optimal ones to take, based on a variety of factors including personal allergies. I did all this by trial and error, with support from internet groups and internet friends while essentially spurned by my doctors. I don't see any reason this model couldn't be improved upon with appropriate research and support.
Edit: I will add that I also took high doses of b-vitamins, carnitine to absorb one of them, got off the advil that was depleting the b-vitamins, and at times ate high cholesterol meals, like bacon and eggs with butter on flat bread. These were also important. I just didn't pay as much attention to the process of healing my nerves because it wasn't a specific goal. The nerve damage I had was minor whereas CF is very deadly and I was extremely ill for quite a long time.
How did you find out about this? I lost my hearing in one ear due to an acoustic neuroma (the operation damaged my auditory nerve). I've never heard (though, I've also never looked!) that sea salts/oils/vitamins could repair damage.
I routinely get downvoted and/or lambasted for answering questions like this publicly on HN. Overtime is available this week for me at work, so I honestly don't have the time to try to give you a meaningful, useful answer on a public forum where it is politically incorrect to discuss what I know on the topic. That's just way too much work right this minute. Please write me privately and I will happy to do my best to answer your questions. Email address is in my profile.
It's not better yet. The point of the research was the sensory input back to the brain. We've had the ability to manipulate computers with our brains for a long time, but the problem with output-only is that you'd try to grab a coffee cup and break it, because you'd have no idea how hard you were grasping it. Tactile sensation is a huge part of motor control, and one that we take for granted. Try, for instance, closing your eyes and touching your nose. Without sensory feedback, you can't do it.
This article mentions an exoskeleton, not a replacement limb. In other words, you keep the non-functional part and add something on top of it. (I've met a couple of quadriplegics. They are, in some sense, slowly rotting hunks of meat. I know this in part because I have a compromised immune system and it makes me very ill to be around one of them.)
If you lose a limb and they replace it with a prosthesis and are working on improving those, great! Seriously. But if you have your original equipment and it just doesn't work, that's a different situation. For example, with organ transplants, you take anti-rejection drugs the rest of your life. I see no reason to believe that a replacement really is as good as getting the original part to work properly. Everything I have seen seems to put a great deal of emphasis on gee-golly-whiz (headline grabbing) solutions (organ transplants, exoskeletons, etc) and not nearly enough on keeping people healthy to begin with or healing what is still there.
The relevant quote is: "'These pumps don't wear out,' he says. 'We haven't pumped one to failure to date.'" The same can not be said of the human heart.
The rest of your argument is from lack of imagination.
The rest of your argument is from lack of imagination.
My opinions on this topic are mostly rooted in having "atypical cystic fibrosis" and getting the hole in my left lung to close (tissue regeneration) when doctors say that is not possible.
This method is awesome, but the biggest problem isn't batteries, or whatnot. It's that the electrodes don't always last as long as we want. Often it's on the order of 6 months to a year in humans. No one wants to have their head cut open repeatedly.
If a doctor said "you can walk for 1 year only" would you take it? I would, but not for the personal benefit. The loss of walking so soon after gaining it would be hard. I'd really only be doing it for the scientific advancement.
I've worked in labs that do similar things, I'm not trying to knock it, I'm just saying there are still a lot of hurdles to be overcome to make it a realistic solution. And we've been working on these hurdles (electrodes lasting longer) for 10 years.
Hopefully battery tech will progress fast enough to power these devices. Right now it definitely isn't there as evidenced by Darpa's exoskeleton which is still powered via a cable.
