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.”
Touching a nerve
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 to infuse — plus “the side effects can be cancer and death,” said Steiner.
She experienced her entire face and other parts of her body go numb to the point that medical professionals tested her for multiple sclerosis.
“They would tell me it takes up to six months for it to kick in,” she said.
“All that time you’re in horrific pain, and switching off took another few months.”
Last year, after being involved in the trial, Steiner reached a breaking point and opted to have the surgery that took only an hour by Northwell’s Dr. Ashesh Mehta.
“The unknowns weren’t anything more unsettling than the medications I was already on.”
‘Pioneering advance’
Tracey explained that the high-tech device works with an antenna connecting to a doctor’s tablet for two-way readings and modifications every six weeks. The implant itself needs to be swapped out every ten years.
“This will be a highly significant advance, a pioneering advance, as a new way to give therapy to people who seriously need it,” said Tracey, who just published a book on the vagus nerve titled “The Great Nerve.”
Steiner said she only feels an occasional buzz like a cell phone from the device during its daily minute of activity — she has it timed for 5 a.m. as a biological alarm clock — and hardly knows it is there otherwise.
It’s charged through a band that is lighter than a bar of soap, which Steiner wears for only 30 minutes weekly.
“I have it around my neck on Sunday mornings while I’m doing the dishes and other housework,” she said.
Now, Steiner is back at Citi Field rooting on her Mets, going to see her favorite band, The Foo Fighters, and going for walks on the beaches of the island.
Seeing its early success, Tracey is optimistic that the FDA will move quickly to green light the implant for broader use.
“This could be as soon as the summer,” he said.