Over the last few weeks my wife has been dealing with leg issues due to her MS. Her legs weren't hurting or painful, but they weren't working right and were cold and partially numb. I wrote a post the other day about finding a new Chiropractor. If you haven't read the post, you can read it by clicking here. The first visit to this new Chiropractor I figured out why she had been dragging her leg. The Dr. was putting her through an initial exam and when she checked her leg length her right leg was literally an inch longer than her left. No wonder it was dragging!
Our new Chiropractor adjusted her hips and for the first few days she really struggled because her body had been out of alignment for so long. After a few more visits she is now doing really well and can actually lift her right leg. For days she couldn't lift her leg high enough to even put her shoe on, but now she is able to raise it almost as high as her left. Every day she is walking better, moving better and all of the cold issues along with the numbness are now gone. It still amazes both of us how her alignment affects so many different things in her body, and how easily it can be fixed with an adjustment.
Over the years we've heard all the advice about how my wife's MS must be progressing and how this is just a part of the natural progression that she would lose functions and have issues. We will continue to push back against this thought process and not accept that my wife's health is going to become worse, and continue to find ways to help my wife feel better and have more control over her MS. So far we have found some very specific things that help my wife and we continue to learn more everyday. I would encourage anyone else that has MS to listen to your body, and look for treatments you feel comfortable with. That's what we've done, and we've had success. Most people don't realize my wife even has MS because we've found treatments that work for her.
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3 comments:
Dear Cory, thank you for the transparency with which you share you & your wife's experiences. A dear friend of mine was diagnosed with MS-RR last year just before her 30th birthday. Being a qualitative researcher at heart I started reading MS blogs and forums to try and understand. At first this horror of a disease scared me. But it is blogs like yours and conversations with many people with MS that gave me hope that MS is not a death sentence for my friend, although I am painfully aware of the daily challenges she might face and how brave she is. I have also been inspired by how alive and productive most people with MS are.
There is a medically applied psychologist in SA with MS-RR currently doing her PhD in MS. Your words above about not giving in to the predictions that MS will progress, but fighting for health echoed her motivation for doing the research she is doing. She believes that resilience protects against relapses and lessens the severity of symptoms.
I haven't really come across research that explores the psychology-body relationship in the context of MS. Most medical practitioners does not seem to believe that there is a connection, but in all the stories I have followed the last couple of months I observed that people had worse relapses/symptoms when they were under stress or when they faced adverse life events that affected their level of resilience. As I read your post I thought this might be something that would interest you. Her story can be found on http://t.co/Mwe3qgcjeL
With great appreciation for sharing your lives so openly.
Jenny
Hey Jenny, thank you for the comment! We are very open people and have talked to people all over the world that have MS. It's been a wild ride, and we continue to learn and grow.
I am always so glad to see someone else benefit from chiropractic care. The medical community does not discuss this type of care most of the time and for those who I do discuss it with, most discount it as if I am merely in denial of what illness I truly have. I too experience so much relief when it comes to my hips and walking after just a visit or two with a good chiro.
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