Heres how a bio implant stopped Long Island womans horrific athritis in its tracks: This is the future

A Long Island speech pathologist said a pioneering bio implant stopped her “horrific” rheumatoid arthritis in its tracks.Massapequa’s Dawn Steiner, 58, said even a simple handshake would mean agony — and after 15 years she retreated into a reclusive lifestyle.“My husband had to help me get dressed,” she told The Post.“I could not wash my hair.

I could barely take a shower by myself.”But her new state-of-the-art bio-implant has miraculously regulated the RA with minimal invasiveness — and just a minute of daily stimulation.It is linked to Steiner’s vagus nerve, a crucial connector between the brain, major organs, and other bodily functions.“We discovered a reflex that slows down inflammation by sending signals to the immune system through the vagus nerve,” said Dr.

Kevin Tracey, president and CEO of Northwell’s Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research on Long Island.“The vagus nerve carries the signals that turn off inflammation … It’s like pushing on the brakes of your car.”The company he co-founded, SetPoint Medical, designed the smaller-than-a-quarter bio-implant “sitting” atop the vagus nerve in the front of Steiner’s neck with hardly a scar to show.“My pain was at a seven or an eight out of ten, now it’s at a one,” Steiner said of the life-changing device that uses AI techn and has been functioning for about a year.“I really believe that this is the future.”The still-to-be FDA-approved approach began in a 2023 medical trial of 242 Americans that Steiner was open to because she believed she was out of other options.“We’re huge Mets fans and there were seasons I couldn’t go to a single game,” she said.“I would come home from work and get right into bed.

The whole weekend was spent in bed, or on the couch sleeping.”Before the implant, doctors started Steiner on methotrexate, “which is a like a low-dose chemo,” she said.That led to trying eight different biologic medications that would take hours ...