This Is MS Multiple Sclerosis Community: Knowledge & Support

When someone is diagnosed with liver disease, the veins are checked. If the hepatic vein is blocked, and there are signs of collaterals and inefficient drainage, the diagnosis is Budd Chiari. In organ failure, the venous system is routinely checked. Blood flow is considered an important assessment.

Hearing Dr. BB Lee in Bologna was a mind-opening experience. Here stood an eminent researcher and physician stating that we had no idea how slowed extracranial venous drainage of the brain affected gray matter. There were simply no studies. And this astounded him. But if we looked to Budd-Chiari, we could see how a lifetime of slowed perfusion could damage the organ beyond repair. And there are no brain transplants.

Marc, I'm sure there are people with blocked hepatic veins whose collaterals are just fine, and they go to their graves with mildly impaired livers. I'm sure there are migrainers who have some venous issues and may show a bright spot on MRI...but this does not mean that venous drainage impairment can be tolerated by everyone . I'm sure the doctors can remove jugular veins in cancer patients, and they can show you another person who has the exact same blockage as you, Marc. But they are not you.

There may very well be some crazy, Rube Goldbergesque process in MS...venous stenosis + EBV infection + blood pressure changes + insufficient vitamin D + a bit of bad luck/genes and you get MS. Who knows? But the fact that venous anomalies are showing up in MS patients and confounding vascular doctors and IRs should give us pause. And if patients want to have their veins opened, they should be allowed to be seen and treated by vascular doctors, just as Budd Chiari patients are. Because the brain is damaged and the veins draining that organ are not working properly.

And I don't see your essay as anything more than your usual thought-provoking and articulate writing, Marc.
cheer

Marc - I am very pleased to read that you are being so well looked after by all those top medical doctors. They must be amazing to be around.

I have tried my best to read all the information you have provided here at TIMS and your blog. I say tried my best as you are a bit ''wordy'' and that challenges me . There is a fair-good chance I might skip over some useful information you provide .....

There is no doubt you are one of the better posts to read here at TIMS.

But that said ..... I do not agree with some of your opinions.

I do not agree with you ... that some people with blocked veins are healthy. I won't repeat myself on that subject here .....you can read my concerns about this on my other posts.

One other thing ..... we all are more-or-less cut out like cookies .... with our anatomy being .... more-or-less .... all the same.

When something differs ...... such as CCSVI ..... it's time to correct the difference before problems arise .....such as MS.





...put your head on my chest ...'cause I'm ...




Mr. Success

btw the standard anecdote on how many healthy people have lesions is 5%.
Since ms is .01% that means that 98% of people with lesions DONt have ms. This number is higher in a population over 50 years old.

So why is buffalo's control goup for ccsvi 25%. Hmm well 5% could be these benign msers, family members push it up, but like a lot of their numbers dunno.

In poland the ultrasound and mri didnt show much onme, but the venography showed a lot. Its all about venography to me these days..

course that might make the control number even higher...

Even without episodes of restenosis, follow-up care is vital, and I hope that all patients seeking treatment in far from home understand this.

Maybe I'm absolutely wrong, but knowing that the Zamboni testing is difficult to learn (as Dr. Sclafani said) and despite being trained by Dr. Z (or his team )could it be possible that Buffalo's results are skewed(at least in part) because operator's skill?

What was really investigated? ccsvi prevalence or how much skilled an echo doppler technician should be?

When enough significant anomalies have accrued against a current paradigm, the scientific discipline is thrown into a state of crisis, according to Kuhn. During this crisis, new ideas, perhaps ones previously discarded, are tried. Eventually a new paradigm is formed, which gains its own new followers, and an intellectual "battle" takes place between the followers of the new paradigm and the hold-outs of the old paradigm. Again, for early 20th century physics, the transition between the Maxwellian electromagnetic worldview and the Einsteinian Relativistic worldview was neither instantaneous nor calm, and instead involved a protracted set of "attacks," both with empirical data as well as rhetorical or philosophical arguments, by both sides, with the Einsteinian theory winning out in the long-run. Again, the weighing of evidence and importance of new data was fit through the human sieve: some scientists found the simplicity of Einstein's equations to be most compelling, while some found them more complicated than the notion of Maxwell's aether which they banished. Some found Eddington's photographs of light bending around the sun to be compelling, some questioned their accuracy and meaning. Sometimes the convincing force is just time itself and the human toll it takes, Kuhn said, using a quote from Max Planck: "a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."

“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it”
Max Planck quotes (German theoretical Physicist who originated quantum theory, 1858-1947)

Concerned,

Are you saying that we all have to wait the opposing neuros to die?