Archive for January, 2010

01/25/10 update – 3 months post CCSVI procedure

Shoulder pain is almost gone, I can rotate my shoulders. Can now sling my coat over shoulders and slip my arms in, without assistance. Minor pain from stents when turning neck is gone. Feeling stronger, starting to do minor exercises while prone. I still walk with a cane and not very far. If I go out with my husband I wait in the car while he shops. Now that the shoulder pain is abated, I have more energy, and will return to physical therapy once a week.  Dr. Dake said the average time for shoulders to heal up is 3 months, so I’m on schedule with that.

01/14/10 update – follow up appointment at Stanford:

Had my follow up at Stanford with Dr. Dake,. Left jugular previously 95% blocked, right juggler 85% blocked are now both at 100% open flow, everything looks good, I did not have to go in for 2nd procedure. No cell overgrowth or build up. My stenosis where caused by mechanical obstructions, the high internal jugs were crushed against cervical vertebrae, the lower left jug was impinged by the carotid artery mashing into it. I took a print out of the earlier MRV images so I could label it properly, new images are posted here.

I reported the following improvements at follow up:

Painful morning extensor spasms in calf muscles were gone after three weeks. Night time leg contracture spasms that would go on for hours, stopped 2 months after procedure. I still have some tone/stiffness in legs, but it is abating. No more icy hands and feet, they are now warm, and I don’t have to wear wool socks to bed. Urgency has lessened by 50%. Energy has picked up, and balance has improved.

Status update 12/06/09 5 weeks post CCSVI Procedure

This is going to be a short update because shoulder pain has been keeping me from typing. Shoulders started to get markedly better yesterday but I’m not going to push it. Also had some trouble with warfarin, low hematocrit (close to transfusion level) due to heavy menses for 17 days lead to passing out and 2 trips to the emergency room. Off warfarin since 11/29, taking an iron supplement and feeling better. Yes, ironic given the iron overload in the brain, butcha gotta have iron in the blood too. I will get my log posted, seeing some exciting and significant improvements in long-standing physical problems (improvements in heavy leg feeling, urgency, balance, walking, toe drop, fatigue, spacticity, extensor spasm).

But this is a difficult recovery for someone with significant disability to begin with (SPMS 15 years, EDSS=5.5). I had worse disability the first week after stents, for the first time my arm movements were weakened (husband had to lift me in and out of bed). What drove me to take the plunge was 3 relapses over the last two years (triggered by fevers) that added new and lasting disability. I felt the next relapse could leave me bed ridden, so I felt I had to take immediate action.

At the bottom of my images page  I added the x-ray from one month after stents. To my untrained eye, it seemed there was a big difference in the space between upper and lower stents, but I sent it to Dr. Dake and he said this was due to parallax, different camera angles between the flouroscope and the x-ray. Tip: keep your stent procedure notes and Dr. phone numbers handy if case of trip to ER. Once the doctor, nurses and techs saw the report from Stanford, the X-Files suspicion lifted, and they were excited to hear the CCSVI hypothesis.

Think carefully about this decision, it does have risks, and not everybody is reporting immediate improvements. All I can do is go to physical therapy every week and do my daily exercises, but I will keep track and share my results. LDN was my first “get out of jail free card”. It gave me a great four years of recovery, but started to slip the past two years. I hope this is my second card. I am about n=60 in our joint experiment, and look forward to the unfolding outcome.