I am an attorney, and generally a very cynical person. I am usually of the "glass is half empty" view. Thus, when I heard of this procedure about 5 months ago I was not very interested. My wife Marcy has very advanced MS, 100% bedridden, feeding tube, and unable to speak for almost two years. She is end stage. It was about a 17-year (with interferon/copaxone/etc.) road to this stage. Nothing the doctors had been able to do made much difference.
Something about this procedure nagged at me, though. I started reading up on it at sites such as this one, and decided to start the process. We live in San Diego, so I decided to go to Hospital Angeles in Tijuana, about 15 miles from where I live. It was a big pain to get a passport given Marcy's being unable to communicate (and with an expired driver's license), but we got it all together and headed south. Marcy was not cognizant of what was going on. I felt that even if something terrible happened, she could not be worse than she currently was.
The testing showed one jugular was 70% blocked, the other 99%. The latter required a stent to keep open. I did not want to do a stent, but felt Marcy had virtually no hope as it was, so it was not the more serious decision it might have been if she had been in better condition.
They had to knock her our for the operation, because you have to stay very still and she would move. Though she came through the operation fine, her breathing was adversely affected by the anesthesia (apparently it can cause much more mucous, and she cannot swallow). I had to rush her back to San Diego, and after five days in a local hospital her lung infection improved enough to go back to her nursing home. Up to this point there was no change, as she was very ill and asleep almost all the time.
However, right around Thanksgiving she suddenly began to speak! Not long conversations, but short ones. She is saying a few words every single day now. The nurses at the home are in shock, as am I. This morning I asked how she was doing, and she said, "I feel fine." I told her I was going to get a Christmas tree and would she like to see it, and she said, "Yes." Her eyes are bright, and she is following us around the room. When we ask her to smile, she gives us a beautiful smile.
To some people, such things are minor. They are not to me. I prayed about this a long time, and was very worried I was doing the wrong thing. but I was not. This is not a "placebo effect," since she had no clue what was going on. She may revert, she may get even better, she may suffer a clot or migrating stent and die. However, I know this: in her case, this CCSVI created a radical change in her condition, and within weeks. I am not a skeptic anymore.
I realize there are risks with this procedure, and for many the risks may outweigh the potential reward. However, if any of your friends or family members are near death as my wife was, I truly believe you should have them examined for this vein blockage. My home email is
metalteam@cox.net if you have any questions of me (checked every few days, so if I don't get back to you right away please be patient).
Thanks to the doctors in Mexico who made this possible, to this site and others like it where people can freely discuss such issues, to Dr. Zamboni/Dake and others like them, and to the Lord, who said, "Ask and it shall be given you, that your joy may be full." Merry Christmas!
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