Paralyzed Sebastopol teen hopeful about new treatment

Carson Pforsich has been a bit of a gym rat this summer, devoting hours each day to strength training, pool time and workouts designed to produce an optimal level of flexibility and fitness for what lies ahead.

But in the months to come, what he may need to exercise most is patience, while he waits for signs that stem cell treatments he is receiving overseas are working.

Pforsich, 18, is in Thailand, where doctors recently began infusing him with umbilical-?cord stem cells that they and their patient hope will help him regain mobility in the wake of a paralyzing spinal cord injury last fall.

It’s an opportunity for which the recent Analy High School grad had been angling for months in his quest to recover motor function he lost during a Sept. 24 diving accident in Bodega Bay.

Similar therapies are still undergoing clinical trials in the United States, so Pforsich, a Sebastopol resident, had to look beyond the nation’s borders for the kind of treatment he wanted.

He and his family thought they had found it in Panama, at a clinic that agreed last winter to consider him for treatment. But doctors there ultimately determined he was not a candidate, and he quickly applied to another medical center in Bangkok, which last month granted its approval for him to come on over.

“This is definitely a shot,” his dad, Andy Pforsich, said by phone from Thailand. “I hope that it’s the breakthrough we’ve been waiting for.”

Carson Pforsich was a high school senior, team captain and wide receiver for the Analy Tigers when he and some friends took a Sunday afternoon trip to the beach off Pinnacle Gulch 11 months ago.

Pforsich dove into a wave and hit bottom, fracturing a vertebra in his neck, a piece of which impinged on his spinal cord and instantly paralyzed him from the chest down.

Another friend swimming with him observed him face down and motionless in the water and helped get Pforsich ashore, saving his life.

In the time since, with the help of community, discipline and drive, Pforsich has dedicated himself to therapies and multifaceted exercise designed to maximize and extend the physical abilities that remain.

Though technically quadriplegic, Pforsich has through the months slowly regained movement, strength and control in his neck, shoulders and arms, but his fingers have yet to respond, according to Andy Pforsich, a longtime Sonoma County firefighter who serves as assistant chief at the Gold Ridge Fire Protection District. Carson Pforsich also now has physical sensation throughout his body.

He uses a motorized wheelchair to get around, enabling him to return to school mere months after the accident to participate in senior year. He was named prom king and graduated with his class in May.

In June, Pforsich was the first individual to be honored under the city of Sebastopol’s new “Locals Who Make a Difference” campaign, the result of multiple nominations acknowledging his courage and determination, officials said.

Banners hung on light poles down Main Street featured a photo of Pforsich in his letter jacket with the mullet hairstyle he proudly sported at graduation, though he’s since shorn it off, his father said.

Pforsich planned next to start classes at Santa Rosa Junior College, though he opted out of fall semester when the trip to Bangkok and subsequent rehabilitation became a reality, his father said.

Pforsich, his divorced parents, Andy and Andrea Duckhorn Pforsich, his younger sister, Kelsey, and a family friend left for Asia on Aug. 8 after weeks of planning to ensure Carson Pforsich could travel safely and comfortably on what was to be a grueling, two-part trip lasting more than 16 hours, his father said.

Despite several snafus - including a delayed flight, a missed connection and one flight crew becoming aware of Carson’s needs only when he arrived at the gate - the family arrived at the Regeneration Center of Thailand early Aug. 10.

By the next day, after several final examinations and approvals, Pforsich received his first infusion of 25 million amniotic cells derived from umbilical cords, Andy Pforsich said. He’ll get at least two more weekly infusions before the family departs Bangkok on Aug. 26.

Stem cells, sometimes called “blank” cells, are unspecialized, like the initial cells that form a human embryo. They can change and assume the role and function of other cell types, with the potential to repair or replace damaged tissues and organs, experts say.

The Regeneration Center website states that spinal cord patients may experience improvements around two to three months after initial treatment, with “positive results (that) can be pretty dramatic if the injury is less than two years old.”

Andy Pforsich said his son’s doctors were impressed with his son’s fitness level and voiced enthusiastic confidence in a positive outcome.

But there are no guarantees.

Stem cell treatments, though highly diversified to target a wide range of medical problems, are still in the early stages of clinical application, even in Thailand, according to the clinic website.

Though clinical trials are showing promise, the federal Food and Drug Administration has yet to approve stem cell products for spinal cord injuries in the United States.

“There is still much work to do before it can be widely available to patients,” said prominent researcher Charles Liu, director of the Neurorestoration Center at the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine, where key clinical trails are underway.

The FDA, in the meantime, has warned consumers about participating in what’s been called “stem cell tourism,” lest they fall prey to dangerous, untested or even scam procedures.

Andy Pforsich said his son, who was the first to research the Thailand center, and his family were impressed by the staff’s credentials.

He said they have been continually reassured by prompt, thorough communication and by the setting and treatment provided so far.

“It came down to a fairly reasonable amount of money, and it came with the chance of gaining and maybe walking again,” Andy Pforsich said, versus a future of wondering what might have happened had they tried.

“It was kind of a no-brainer,” he said. “We were in it from the beginning.”

Carson Pforsich, meanwhile, “is focusing on the things to look forward to,” his father said.

“You can’t look back. It’s just not going to do you a bit of good,” Andy Pforsich said of his son. “He’s got his mind well wrapped around that fact that he is where he is, but he doesn’t spend time looking back.”

You can reach Staff Writer Mary Callahan at 707-521-5249 or mary.callahan@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @MaryCallahanB.