Tripping, Falling and Rolling With MS

Over the last few weeks, my wife has worked tons of hours at our Children's Home, along with keeping up with our 14 yr old daughter. Too many hours and not enough rest turned into my wife dragging her right foot. This is a fairly common issue when she is tired and her body is worn out. Normally she would rest more along with seeing our Chiropractor, but time didn't allow those things and she fell hard last week.

We were heading to get a smoothie for our daughter and my wife caught her foot on the curb while hurrying up to the door. By the time I realized what was happening, she had already fell hard, rolled a few times and hopped up. I could see the look of pain in her eyes as she started heading back to the car. She banged up her knee along with tearing up her hands, and feeling very embarrassed after someone in the store came out and asked her if she needed help.

She was OK, but pretty beat up and we knew that if we didn't have her adjusted by the Chiropractor she would be headed to a lot of issues. Within hours her foot was already numb and her fingertips were numb. She was exhausted and slept for a few days to try to catch up and keep her body from spiraling downward. She went to the Chiropractor on Monday and immediately started getting feeling back into her foot and hands. By the end of the day the feeling was completely back and her body was recovering quickly. She also found a new massage therapist that she was very happy with this week which has also helped in the past.

It still amazes me how the warning signs are always there when her body is starting to get tired and her MS is starting to flair. If we ignore it, we ask for the problems to come and if we will just do what we know to do, we can create the environment for her to stay healthy. My wife commented that tonight she overdid it and that nothing was worth wearing her body out, so I have a feeling that this was a wake up call for her to take better care of herself. This last week she started the Swank MS diet again, and has been very focused on taking back control of her diet and health. The last four months have been very hard with both of us having to work long hours but the light at the end of the tunnel can be seen now. She is already doing better from her fall the other day, and I know she will continue to get stronger and healthier.

One of the Three Deadly Sins of MS

Dr. Swank used to always tell us that there are three main life stresses that really seem to impact Multiple Sclerosis - Moving, Death and Marriage. Well, we have made it through all of these, and are in the middle of moving once again. I have taken a CEO position with a Children's Home in Kansas, so we are loading up this Friday and moving to Wichita. We have been packing for over a week now, and the stress load is weighing on my whole family, and especially my wife.

She has been very fatigued lately anyway, and with the added moving stress, she has been sick after every meal, had bad headaches, struggled with tight muscles in her neck and shoulders, and just had to push through all of it to pack and get ready to move. It amazes me what she can push through and how willing she is to work even when she feels like she's been hit by a Mack truck. She is finishing our kitchen today, and I am so proud of how hard she works and how positive she is even during these times.

One of the reasons we even looked at this job was because of the health care available in Wichita. We have been two hours from our Chiropractor which has been a pain, and I really think it has caused her to have more issues. When she is seeing the Chiropractor regularly, she is a different person. And if we have a good massage therapist to work her shoulders and back, it multiplies the effects and she does even that much better. We have learned how important it is to live somewhere that we can have easy, quick access to natural Doctors and a good Chiropractor. We are excited for the move and will be seeking a new Naturopathic Doctor as soon as we get there.

So, we won't be able to avoid one of the big three stresses on MS this time, but we know that this will be a better place in the long term. Controlling stress in your life is vital for MS patients, and I know for us it is probably one of the most challenging things we manage. When stress is minimized, we've noticed that life is so much easier, and my wife's MS begins to take a more back seat to daily living.

Shooting Pain In Temples With MS

This past week has been a tough one. I had a kidney stone and stressed myself and my family to the limits. After an ER visit and a lot of pain, the kidney stone is gone, but the stress is hanging on. My wife was exhausted all of last week and woke up a few days ago with shooting pain in her temples. She had a dull headache, but she could handle that pain. What she couldn't handle was the pain that would hit every few minutes and would cause a searing pain in both temples by her eyes. Her eyes didn't necessarily ache, but when the pain hit, it would stop her in her tracks. She hadn't dealt with this kind of headache before, so we were a little unsure of what brought it on, but we feel like it was the way she had her head resting on her pillow.

We have been using special pillows for years after our Chiropractor recommended them. At first they were really uncomfortable and took a while to get used to, but now we both carry them everywhere and have a hard time sleeping without them. We have found our adjustments "stick" much better after we started using them, and we found ourselves sleeping better. The other morning she had tilted the pillow against the wall and was laying on it at an angle. While laying there she knew that her neck was sore, but didn't think it would bring on a headache. About 30 minutes later the pain hit and she knew then that she should have adjusted the pillow back correctly. I think it frustrates us both that it is so easy to create issues in our lives, not just with MS, but just life in general. We seem to cause a lot of our own misery by not resting enough, trying to do too much, eating poorly and a number of other things. Sometimes we seem to be our worst enemy. :)

MS Mood Swings

Crying, laughing, anger and joy are just part of our lives right now. We have recently taken a new position at a different Children's Home to allow for more time with our daughter, so our life is a little bit of a mess. To top it off, our daughter has been away from us for over a week now and it is killing my wife. They have an awesome relationship so it has been extremely hard for both of them to be apart. So we are trying to pack, watch our children's home kiddos, and keep our sanity without pushing ourselves too hard and trying to take care of my wife's health.

With all of the stress my wife's mood swings are full bore. She is laughing and joking one minute and about the blow up the next. Being away from our daughter has only stressed her out more, and when our daughter is struggling and crying on the phone, my wife just falls apart. I know it is bad when my wife starts crying uncontrollably from watching TV shows and having sympathy for the families that are struggling. The other night she watched the new John and Kate Plus 8 episode and was weepy for about any hour after it was over. She has watched this show from the beginning and she has such a huge heart for people that are hurting.

I don't know if Multiple Sclerosis causes mood swings or just how much it affects your emotions, but I know that when my wife is stressed and struggling, she has a very hard time controlling her emotions. That lack of control seems to be amplified when she is having MS issues. Today she visited the chiropractor because she knew she was out of alignment and was not sleeping very well. Her lower back was way out and the chiropractor used the Pro Adjuster to realign the places that were causing the issues. Many times after an adjustment my wife will feel very tired and need rest. Tonight she has been better emotionally but she laid down early to try and catch up on her sleep. It never ceases to amaze me how important it is to control stress, rest and keep her body aligned so that it can function properly. Once we get moved things will slow down for us, but for now we have to be vigilant about taking care of the things that are in our control, and mood swings seem to be a side effect of life being a mess.

MS Remission or Coincidence

Over a year ago I decided to look around for a good Multiple Sclerosis forum to post some of the thoughts I had on MS. I read articles and posts for a few months before I settled on a MS forum that I felt would be open to alternative care and treatment. I began to post a few thoughts to see how it would be received and everything went OK. After a few months I started a post about my wife being treated at a clinic with IV therapy and other treatments. I received a few good comments on the post and then I received one that really puzzled me.

One of the readers commented that she didn't think that what we were doing really helped. She felt like it could be explained as the MS going into remission or really good timing. I wrote back that we had done this many times over and every time the treatment worked and my wife became better. She still wasn't convinced and it has bothered me ever since. Multiple Sclerosis is a very funny disease because it will go into remission. What we have experienced over time is that we have more control over the disease than we first thought. Over the years, most of the stuff we read and doctors we spoke with told us that we were really helpless and that the disease would just run it's course. My wife says I am stubborn, and for once I am glad that is true. I was stubborn enough to not listen and find our own truth.

So, was her MS in remission or was it a coincidence that she became better? If you ask her she will tell you that she knows for a fact that what we have done has helped her. If you ask her family, which by the way has an ER Doctor, a Pharmacist and an Anesthetist in it, they will also tell you that it has helped. We have all seen her completely numb and then up and walking after a few treatments. We have seen her in total pain or completely dizzy and once she is adjusted by our chiropractor, she immediately is better. I have watched her have bladder issues and after one Bowen treatment, the issues are gone. It is amazing to watch and most of the doctors are amazed. What is really amazing is how few of the doctors have ever suggested or encouraged any of the things we have done.

I hope and pray that more MS sufferers decide to take matters into their own hands and learn about the disease they have. I honestly believe that most MS patients could live a more normal life by taking more control of their treatment plan and options. There is so much out there that we don't know about Multiple Sclerosis but there are also so many things that we do. Once my wife and I started listening to her body better, and studying and learning, we started to realize that we could make a difference. Was it remission or coincidence? There is no question in my mind that what we have done has had a direct impact on my wife's health, and it wasn't remission or coincidence, it was treatment.

Chiropractic Care for Multiple Sclerosis

Chiropractic care has been blasted by some as useless or harmful, and others have praised it's success for patients. I can only give a testament about how it has affected my family and others around us, but I think it may be helpful to anyone considering chiropractic care. Until seven years ago my wife had never stepped foot in a chiropractor's office. She didn't grow up in a family that went to a chiropractor and she was very nervous about the cracking and popping she had seen on TV. When she was numb from her chest down we were asked to see a chiropractor near the clinic we were being treated at. He was a typical pop and crack type chiropractor and took the time to completely examine my wife's issues and adjust her. The first time my wife's neck was adjusted, she began to cry uncontrollably. I knew that her MS seemed to have an affect on her pain tolerance, and this was no different. It hurt, and she didn't want to ever have that done again.

I had been to a chiropractor many times for low back issues, and had no problems with their adjusting techniques, but her body just couldn't handle it. So, we decided that chiropractic wasn't for us and headed home after the treatments were done at the clinic. Once we were back home my wife kept having numbness in her legs even though she could feel her legs and walk normally. It was in what she described as stripes that circled around her legs all the way down to her feet. Since it wasn't going away, we asked our doctor what to do. He recommended a different kind of chiropractor in our area that he felt could help us. That was the first time we met Dr. Darci Stotts. She is a board certified Atlas Orthogonal chiropractor that uses instruments to adjust instead of popping and cracking.

Our first visit really impressed us. Once my wife described the numbness, Dr. Stotts immediately knew what was going on. She explained how the nerves spiraled around the legs and that a damaged nerve could cause the feelings of numbness. After a thorough examination and x-rays, she showed us the problems. She then took us into a room with a special AO device that would adjust my wife's neck. It only applied 8 pounds of pressure and didn't hurt at all, so my wife was never in any pain. Dr. Stotts told us not to expect much after the first few visits because the nerve would need time to heal and it could take up to 6 weeks to start to notice a difference. What surprised us was the fact that my wife felt so much better after the first visit. She immediately had more feeling in her legs, and also felt better physically. Within a few weeks her numbness was completely gone in her legs and she was feeling great.

Since then, we have continued to use Dr. Stotts services on a regular basis and it has worked wonderfully. My wife can now tell when she is out of alignment and will immediately go see Dr. Stotts and get adjusted. If my wife is feeling an attack coming on, like numbness in an extremity etc., she immediately sees Dr. Stotts and we have found that it stops the attack as soon as she is adjusted. It may take a few adjustments to go away, but the attack will not continue to spread and cause issues. Since the first time we visited Dr. Stotts, she has started treating with a new technology. It is a machine that gives real time graphs to show your alignment and she adjusts you with a device attached to the computer. There is no pain and my wife is still getting great results from her adjustments. We know that this has helped with my wife's health and we will continue to see a AO chiropractor. We moved off once where we couldn't visit Dr. Stotts easily, and we saw what could happen when we didn't have access to a AO chiropractor. My wife would have numbness or tingling and it would continue to get worse until we made the trip to see Dr. Stotts. Chiropractic for us has been a life saver. We will never go back to a pop and crack chiropractor, but we will find a BCAO chiropractor in our area to continue to receive treatments.

Blurry Eyes

The morning after the vertigo hit, my wife woke up with a blurry eye. That is not what we wanted to hear, and we didn't know if it would go away with rest or if we were off to do another round of steroids. She has been blind in one eye fours times over the course of the disease, and that is one of the few times we use meds to help with any of the problems. She usually does a round of Solu-Medrol and her eyesight clears up. Her eyes usually start getting blurry, lose color, and then she explains it as her eyes going dim until it just goes dark. It must be really scary to go blind and not know if it will come back or not. I know that one of her eyes is still dim from one of these episodes. So, when she woke up with her eye not quite right, we both felt like we would be heading to the doctor. What we didn't know is how much the chiropractic visit would help. She had already had an appointment set that morning from the day before, and she was still a little dizzy, so we went in to see how much adjustment was needed. Her spine was way out again, so she was adjusted and within minutes of the adjustment her eye cleared right up. We had never thought about using chiropractic for her eyes before, but we have seen weirder things over the years. After her adjustment the dizziness was gone and she felt much better most of the day. I know how much it scares my wife to have problems with her eyes, and I could see the relief on her face after she knew that her eyes were OK.

Another one of those days

Today has been another MS day. My wife woke up sick this morning and has been having vertigo symptoms on and off all day long. She has had vertigo before, and it usually seems to hit on the wrong day at the wrong time. She has been trying to sleep it off all day, and will probably sleep straight for 20 + hours. I know that this frustrates her more than anything. She had so many things planned for today, and on top of being sick, she now feels behind even further than she already was. We both feel like this is just a stomach bug going around, but her Multiple Sclerosis seems to make these things bigger than they should be. Today will pass, and by tomorrow morning she may feel great again. The vertigo became worse as the day went on, so we decided to try a special chiropractor we have been going to for about 5 years. The drive to the office was not enjoyable, and the walk inside wasn't much better. The people in the chiropractors office stared hard since my wife could hardly stand, much less walk. Within minutes of being adjusted I could tell from her eyes and color of her skin that the vertigo was letting up. We didn't know if it would work, but the chiro treatment was able to knock out the majority of the dizziness and within about half an hour, she was feeling a 100 times better. She slept the rest of the day and was feeling considerably better. These times are always hard, and you never know if these attacks will last a few hours, a few days or a month or more, so we were relieved when she started getting better the same day. And as I have learned in our marriage, this was just another one of those days.