Source: Foxcharlotte

MATTHEWS, N.C. - Stem cell research has been quite controversial here in the U.S. Is it ethical or just good science?

For one Matthews man, it was a good chance to see again.

We first introduced you to Adam Kitchen last August. Legally blind, Adam just got back from China where he received stem cell treatment.

Adam says he knew it was working just days after getting there, when he had dinner one night with his wife Lori.

"I could actually see her across the table i could see her eyes and her facial features and everything... It was unreal."

His wife says, "it was a little bit annoying (because) we would be sitting for dinner and we would be staring at me staring and staring at me and I would have to say Adam please just stop staring at me."

Kitchen's eyesight is still far from perfect, but, his vision is progressively getting better.

Adam says he hopes one day to drive a car.

Source:Carolina Weekly Newspapers

Blind Matthews resident says overseas stem cell therapy is helping him see 

Last month, Adam Kitchen dropped a paperclip on the floor at work and picked it up with ease.

A mundane occurrence for most, it’s a major victory for Kitchen, who has been legally blind since birth and until a few weeks ago wouldn’t have been able to see the paperclip on the floor.

Matthews-Mint Hill Weekly first told you about Kitchen in September 2009. Since then, his family raised the nearly $40,000 needed to send him to China for stem cell treatments and, it appears, they’re working.

A 32-year-old Matthews resident, Kitchen admits he doesn’t look blind. The husband and father of four wears glasses and doesn’t use a walking cane or Seeing Eye dog. But Kitchen can’t drive, watch sporting events or read to his children. He has optic nerve atrophy, caused by eye nerves that didn’t fully develop. The salesman with south Charlotte’s Excite Telecommunications traveled to China in February with his wife and high school sweetheart, Lori, for the treatments. Kitchen’s 8-year-old daughter, Cora, and 28-year-old brother, Jared, have the disorder, too.

Source: KGET TV 17

A young man stricken with what's best known as elephant man's disease, could have his sight restored within a matter of days. It's called Neurofibromatosis and it can affect the optic nerve.

Now, thanks to breakthrough stem cell therapy in China, this man, with family ties to Bakersfield, could see clearly for the first time in his life.

"If you are about as far away as you are now, four feet, I can see your face, but I can't see like major detail," says Kyle Dobbins, 23. "I can just see it all there."

He may not look it, but Dobbins is legally blind. "I don't see things the same way. I want to be normal," said Dobdins, who has Neurofibromatosis. "I want to drive. I want to get to school without taking four hours to get transportation."

At age three, his family realized something was wrong. His actions were not normal and he cried constantly.

"I had a hard time because he cried a lot and sometimes I would have to hold him down, but i think it was because he couldn't see," said Dee Taylor, Kyle's Grandmother.

But that's not all. Kyle's parents took him to Children's Hospital in Madera, where a doctor diagnosed him with a rare form of Neurofibromatosis, better known as the elephant man disease.

Source: WPBF

David Aldrich Paralyzed, Blinded In Swimming Accident  

A Delray Beach man who nearly drowned in a swimming accident has a new lease on life thanks to stem cell therapy.

David Aldrich depends on a wheelchair and his speech is slurred. Aldrich suffered serious injuries after a swimming accident in 2002.

Aldrich said he dove off the back of a boat that was anchored in shallow water and hit his head. When he wasn't pulled out soon enough, Aldrich stopped breathing and nearly drowned.

Doctors placed Aldrich in a medically-induced coma.

"They didn't expect me to live a week," Aldrich said.