First Years With Multiple Sclerosis

The first MS attack my wife remembers was her left arm going numb from her shoulder to her finger tips. During that time, she was going to paralegal school and had recently moved to the Dallas area. She was 20 yrs old at the time. She went to see the doctors and they felt she had carpal tunnel syndrome. They gave her a wrist support and sent her home, diagnosing her with a pinched nerve. For weeks she was numb, then the feeling started to come back. Everyone felt as if this was an isolated incident and not a big deal. Almost a year later, at Thanksgiving, my wife started to have fuzziness in her left eye. This was after a busy day and it came on without warning. She noticed the problem as she tried to drive home and couldn't see well when she was passing cars. She went to bed that night not knowing what the issue was, then woke up the next day blind in that eye.

She immediately went to see the eye doctor and he gave my wife the diagnosis of MS. He explained that he had only seen this issue with patients that had Multiple Sclerosis. My wife's biological mom had been in contact with her adoptive father at the time so he knew that she could have MS. At that time, the doctors were still teaching that MS was not hereditary and my wife was one of the first cases of a mother/daughter with MS. Her eye doctor gave her steroids for the blindness and she was able to regain her sight after a few weeks. My wife was completely blind for a full week this first time before the sight began to come back. About the time that she had regained her sight completely back, her right eye went blind.

This happened the day after Christmas, and seemed to coincide with her menstrual cycle. This time my wife was hospitalized and put through testing for MS. She had an MRI done and a spinal tap. Neither one of these came back positive for MS. The MRI showed no lesions but her parents felt like it was definitely MS. Her father chose at this point to not continue any testing because as a pharmacist, he felt like it was futile. He felt like it was a waste because it wasn't like they could cure or really even help with the drugs that were available then. The doctors started her on steroids and her eyesight began to come back just like it had before.

About that same time my wife's mother attended a Yanni concert. During the concert he spoke about how his daughter was about to give birth, and about how she had MS. My wife's mother approached him after the concert and he took her aside and told her about Dr Roy L Swank. My in-laws called Dr. Swank's office and was lucky enough to get an appointment within a month due to a cancellation and her age. Because she was only 21 at the time, Dr. Swank wanted to see her as quickly as possible. My wife moved back home and went to see Dr. Swank. Dr. Swank confirmed the MS diagnosis and had her start the Swank MS diet. My wife moved back home and began the diet immediately.

For nine months my wife slept and kept a strict diet according to Dr. Swank's book. Right after the blindness issues, my wife had tingling in her legs and problems walking. She also started to have epileptic seizures in her left arm. She had the seizures for about a month, and the doctors had her take seizure medication. The seizures stopped after that month and she has not had any since. The leg issues continued off and on for the first six months after starting the diet. My wife's main memories of that first year of MS were sleeping all the time and being stuck at the house. She remembers how strict the diet was and how worried she was about breaking the diet. She has commented many times about how she was worried about eating a french fry, or potato chip, because it might make her blind. Even when I met her a few years later, she was still strict with her diet and wouldn't cheat due to fear that it would hurt her and cause an MS attack.

After the nine months of sleeping, my wife slowly began to go back to work and continue with her schooling. She continued to have mild MS issues, including fatigue, tingling in her legs/feet, tingling in her arms/hands and headaches. About two years after starting the diet, she went blind for her third time. This time the eye issues started right after rock climbing and hiking all day. About a year later, my wife and I met. I know there are many, many things I am leaving out about those first few years, but maybe this will give a big picture view of my wife's experience. I will try to get into more detail in later posts.

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. :)

Thoughts on CCSVI and Dr. Paolo Zamboni's Research

I have been reading articles and posts all over the net about Dr. Zamboni's research and Chronic Cerebrospinal Venous Insufficiency. One article by Erika Milvy states, "Dr. Zamboni found that, in over 90 percent of people with Multiple Sclerosis, the veins draining blood from the brain were constricted and this led to a buildup of iron in the brain that, he theorized, causes the neurological symptoms of MS." Dr. Zamboni seems to have been driven to this conclusion by his desire to help his wife Elena Zamboni. Dr. Zamboni performed a surgical procedure on his wife to correct this issue and she was one of his first success stories.

After reading these articles I have tried to stay up on the research being done by different universities across the US and Canada. In February more information is supposed to be released and until then we will wait with anticipation. For the past 14 years I have watched as "miracle" cures have hit the media for Multiple Sclerosis, and I have tried to hold on to what we have learned through our own experiences. One of those "miracle" cures was a drug that my wife was set to take in 1990. Fortunately she chose not to take it because it caused major organ failure in the majority of patients that tried it. We have tried to look at this new finding through the lens of these experiences but feel very excited about the possiblities.

After reading one night I asked my wife how she thought life would change if she didn't have to deal with MS everyday. What would change? We sat and dreamed about no fatigue, no worries about over working her body, no worries about going numb or losing eyesight, no more missing events and activities that we have to miss now, and so many other things that we have made choices about that specifically have to do with her MS. It is the first time in our marriage that I can say that we really wondered what it would be like to have true health together, and actually feel there may be a way for that to happen.

I don't know how successful the trials will be, but I do have hope that it may be the beginning of the end. I know that we have personally tested my wife for iron overload and have been baffled by some of the things that have worked and not worked with the treatments we have chosen. I remember her sitting in a magnetic field chair when she was being treated by our naturopath after going numb from the chest down, and she felt great after the treatment. She tried to use the same treatment a year later and it made her feel ill. We had no idea why it made her feel great one time and made her feel awful the next. We still have no solid answer to why, but iron content was one of the issues we were looking at after the treatment. I will share more thoughts later, but for now I wanted to at least acknowledge that we are watching this play out with anticipation and excitement. Our hope is that this research will truly change the way MS is treated.

Never Ceases To Amaze My Wife And I

Ok, so my wife wasn't able to hold any food down for days and was having some tingling and other issues, and she was becoming very frustrated. The first opportunity we had, we called our Chiropractor and setup an appointment. We drove 2 hours to see this specific Chiropractor and he adjusted our whole family with the Pro Adjuster tool. Even on the drive to see him my wife's stomach burned and she was worried about not being able to make it without bladder or stomach issues. Within minutes of being adjusted my wife started to feel better. After an hour or so she started to have more energy and was able to eat without issue. Since the adjustment she has not had anymore bladder issues or stomach issues. It continues to amaze both of us that with the right adjustment techniques her symptoms go away, and that they go away quickly. I am so glad that we didn't give up trying to find a natural treatment that would help with these issues.

Wife TKO'd Through Holidays

What a rough holiday season! My wife dealt with tingling, numbness, pain, bladder issues, fatigue and many other issues over the last few weeks. Today we are heading to see our Chiropractor to realign her body so we can start to make some progress on her symptoms. The last three days she hasn't been able to eat any solid foods due to stomach and bladder issues. We had some teen boys stay with us for a few days and her symptoms started as soon as we picked them up and still haven't completely gone away. It was hard for her to not be involved with them and have to stay close to home because of the issues. That was a recurring theme for our 09 holiday experience.

Holiday stress, poor eating, lack of rest and just pushing her body too hard sure hasn't helped my wife. It amazes me how MS takes full advantage when your body is worn down and you are stressed out. At one point during Christmas, my wife couldn't even enjoy her family because she was so worn out and fatigued. During another time she started feeling tingling around her torso and was worried that it was spreading and would go numb. The emotional roller coaster alone was frustrating during the past few weeks. This morning she is feeling better than she has in four or five days, but if she doesn't see the Chiropractor today and start to rest and eat properly, none of these symptoms are going to go away. She wasn't knocked out completely through the holidays, but she was knocked down a few times.

Arm Seizures With MS

One of the first symptoms my wife experienced at age 21 was arm seizures. Her arm would seize and flail about until it passed. This was one of the symptoms that originally spurred on the doctors to find what was causing her issues. The last few days have brought back unwanted memories from those seizures because her arm has been cramping very painfully. The cramp starts in the front of the shoulder where her arm meets the shoulder. The cramps strike with no warning and become severe very quickly. The pain was severe enough earlier to make her cry. She has had cramps quite a few times in her legs and back, but not in this way since she was in her early years of diagnosis.

We know we have been pushing her body lately. Over the past few weeks she has had cramps in her arms, legs, back and tingling in multiple areas. We are currently living where it isn't convenient to see a Pro Adjuster Chiropractor and we can tell that this lack of preventive care has really affected her everyday living. We know what has worked for my wife in the past and we know that we are not taking the preventive measures we normally do just because of living so far from that type of care. We have been discussing that we are going to have to start finding out what other options we have locally. We both feel like the arm issues are from the stress, both physically and mentally, my wife has been under for the past month and a half. She will be done with this project next week and then she will rest, rest, rest.

Muscle Cramps In Strange Places

Over the last few days my wife has had the oddest muscle cramps. After long days of standing and entertaining over the holidays, my wife had extreme cramps one night in her bicep and two nights in her shin area. Both were extremely painful and came in waves. They would hurt for a short time then stop, then hurt again. After about 4-5 minutes the cramps would quit and then wouldn't come back. The cramps in her shins were the ones that really were strange. They were in the same leg both nights, and at the top of the shin right below the knee. I have never seen a cramp in this particular area and we couldn't get it to stop. She just had to wait until it quit cramping to get relief.

My wife has had plenty of cramping in other areas of her legs, like her thighs, but never in the top of her shins. She has had shin splints before and her calves have cramped, especially after a lot of walking and standing. I know there are others out there that have cramps with Multiple Sclerosis, and I know that my wife has had low potassium in the past which we feel like has made for more issues with the cramping. My wife's body continues to baffle us with the odd issues, and so far she has not had any cramping tonight.