Why Thailand for stem cell therapy? What I’ve seen from the people who fly in

Most people who message me about stem cells don’t live here. They’ve spent weeks reading. They’ve found clinics in five countries. Now they’re trying to work out why anyone would fly to Bangkok for this. I’ve lived in Bangkok a long time, so I’m not neutral. What follows is what I’ve seen: who comes, how they decide, and what I look at before I’d trust anyone with cells.

 

Why here, as far as I’m concerned

I’ll keep this to four things I’ve seen for myself.

 

The labs and the standards. I don’t take anyone’s word for cells. I tried them on myself first, and I went to see the lab with my own eyes. That’s the rule I’ve worked by from the start: we don’t offer anything we haven’t tried on ourselves first.

 

The doctors. Thailand has been doing this for a long time. The doctors here are very experienced, and in this field experience counts for more than anything framed on a wall.

 

The service. People notice how they’re looked after. It’s English from the first message to the last, and nobody rushes them out of the door.

 

The people who already come. They fly in from everywhere: North America, Europe, the Middle East, Australia and across Asia. Once the person next to you in the waiting room has come from the other side of the world, you stop feeling like the adventurous one.

 

How people actually decide

The stories I hear most are about the decision, not the treatment.

 

One man wouldn’t book anything until we’d done a video call. When the call ended, he booked his flight. Another flew in for a first conversation, flew home to think about it, and came back a week later. A woman in Australia put her brother, their mother and me on one call, four of us. Their mother was in her eighties. When she came, she went back and forth to her hotel nearby in a golf buggy.

 

One woman booked forty-five days ahead so the appointment would fall inside her holiday. A father and daughter from the US turned it into a trip together. A man choosing for his mother read up on places in Thailand and abroad. In the end he chose by how specific past patients had been about what changed for them. Another man gave me his three reasons: the quality of the cells, every question answered clearly, and never once a hard sell.

 

One woman told me that as a Westerner she’d been nervous about having anything done in Thailand. I understand that completely. It’s the reason I talk to people before they come.

 

Before anyone gets on a plane, I talk to them myself

I talk to people on WhatsApp or by video before they decide to travel, and sometimes that means the whole family on one call. After they’ve gone home, they still message me with how they’re doing, and I answer those messages myself. There’s no call centre in between. I wouldn’t fly across the world to meet a stranger, so I don’t ask anyone else to.

 

Stem cell tourism: what I look at before I’d trust a clinic

Choosing where to have stem cells is one of the biggest health decisions most people ever make. For a lot of them it’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing. That pushes them towards whatever looks most luxurious, or most futuristic.

 

Ten years in this business taught me something the marketing posters won’t say: luxury decoration isn’t good medicine. A chandelier tells you about the marketing budget. So does a building designed to look ten storeys high when it’s only three. Neither tells you the standard of care. You aren’t buying a hotel stay. You’re buying medical experience, the integrity of the cells, and safety.

 

1. Experience, or impossible claims. Anyone can put on scrubs and call themselves an expert. I’ve seen social media ads from doctors under thirty claiming more than 20,000 cases. In medicine, experience is what lets you predict complications, prevent them and handle them. So I ask how long a place has been running, and who actually does the procedure. I also ask who prepares the IV. Is it a registered nurse with years of clinical experience, or someone trained for a few months to wear a uniform? The value is in the hands treating you, not in the building they work in.

 

2. The biological receipt. The most important part of the treatment is the part you can’t see: the cells themselves. I wouldn’t have an injection without seeing the Certificate of Analysis (COA) for that batch, signed and stamped by the lab director. It’s the receipt for what’s in the bag. It has to show three things:

• the cells are alive (viability)

• they really are mesenchymal stem cells, with the CD73, CD90 and CD105 markers

• they’re sterile and free of contaminants

 

Before I trusted any batch, I read those papers myself. The risk isn’t in the needle or the chair. It’s in everything that comes before. More on that is in Safety questions I get asked.

 

3. What happens behind the scenes. Luxury furniture is easy to buy. Clinical discipline is hard to keep. In some glamorous places I’ve seen staff eating and relaxing in the same area where IV injections are prepared.

 

4. No clock ticking. Healthcare shouldn’t be pushed along by limited-time promotions. If I feel hurried into a fast decision, the place is putting its sales targets ahead of my health.

 

In the end, it’s trust. Medicine is a business of trust. The Hippocratic Oath is about putting the patient’s benefit first. Scams are moving into regenerative medicine, and the protection is to look past the futuristic front and ask for accountability. Take your time. Do your research. A place that’s honest about its staff’s experience and its lab results is a place that respects you.

 

The cells I use come from umbilical cord tissue. They’re grown fresh and never frozen. How they’re made is on the main stem cells page.

 

Planning the trip

You need at least three days in Bangkok. Most people stay somewhere close by, a few minutes away.

 

A lot of people fold it into a bigger trip: a holiday, a work trip, a parent and a grown-up child travelling together. Many people also do more than one thing in the same visit, for example NAD+ one day and stem cells the next. When I had stem cells in my face, the redness lasted a few hours, which is why people fit that one in between other plans. What happens hour by hour on the day is on What to expect.

 

Questions I get asked about coming to Thailand

Is it safe to travel for stem cell therapy?
People fly in all the time, including some in their eighties. The flight is the easy part. The questions that matter are about the cells and who handles them, and I’ve put my answers in Safety questions I get asked.

 

How long do I need to stay in Bangkok?
At least three days. Some people stay longer to do other things, or they make a holiday of it. The actual plan comes from the doctor’s assessment, not from me.

 

Can I do more than one treatment in the same trip?
Plenty of people do. Which ones, and in what order, is the doctor’s decision.

 

What happens after I fly home?
You can still message me. People send me updates for months, and I answer them myself. Medical questions go to the doctors.

 

Who else has done this?
Some of the people I’ve met along the way are on People I have met.

 

If you’re weighing up the trip, message me and ask whatever you’d want to know before getting on a plane.

 

Message me on WhatsApp →

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I’m George. Thirty years in business, then ten years trying this whole field on myself before offering it to anyone else.

This is where I write down what I use, what I stopped using, and what I’d never do again. More about me →