This Is MS Multiple Sclerosis Community: Knowledge & Support

Still, the procedure -and the $7,000 price tag -was worth it, he said.

Later that night at his hotel, Stevenson realized he wasn't tired and he says he has not experienced any fatigue since.

"I can get up earlier, work all day and stay up late," he said.

He also says he can sense improvement in his mobility even though it may not yet be apparent to others.

"To me it's like night and day," he said.

Right after MacNeil, 39, had surgery in Tychy, Poland, she said she had an energy spike greater than anything she'd felt for 20 years.

That lasted about six weeks and then she started to deteriorate and, by the beginning of October, felt very fatigued once more.

"Then my energy started to build again and now I'm at a level where, although I'm not 100 per cent, I'm very pleased with it," she added

"I pretty well lived on my couch for two years," she said. "I could never pick my daughter up from school and now I can everyday. So that's really special for me."

"My biggest gift is my energy," she said. "It will be wonderful being able to go out and see friends whereas last year I had to decline most of my invitations."

Mogensen, a 67-year-old Sudbury resident, only saw a few small improvements to his quality of life after receiving the surgery Nov. 27. Before surgery, he mostly used a wheelchair to get around, something that hasn’t changed.

But he said he’s been able to sleep through the night since the surgery. Before receiving the procedure, he suffered from insomnia, a condition which he suspects was connected to his MS.

“I guess it’s kind of an anticlimax,” especially after hearing about dramatic improvements of other MS patients who have received liberation therapy, he said.

The "liberation treatment" certainly hasn't cured my MS. But it seems to have made most of my MS symptoms less severe and it's like I turned the clock back 15 years.

I'm only a clinical trial of one but the best example of an observable change is that I can now stand up and keep my balance for a couple of minutes where before I used to have trouble standing up long enough to pull up my pants.

Some may trivialize such modest improvement but it's the first time I've had my symptoms actually regress.

And she could not believe the difference afterwards:

“My immediate reaction was it was just like the difference between watching ordinary TV and watching it in HD!” she said.

“I have been transformed in my body from how I was last year – looking at pictures from the time I was worn and tired, but this has made such a difference.

“Before I was very weak in my legs and could not walk far. I had horrendous night sweats, often had to sleep during the day, a miss-beat in my heart and cold feet. All that has gone.”

David said they saw the difference when they walked on the Caspian Sea beach at Varna after she had recovered from the procedure – the day before Jayne had managed less than 20 minutes; afterwards it was nearer to an hour and-a-half.

“It has given Jayne a new lease of life, so that she is capable of doing normal things again,” he said.

Since her treatment in July, her energy levels are improving and so is a growing list of 24 various symptoms including restored balance, improved vision, and fewer muscle spasms.

She chopped her wood in the fall, shopped for six hours a day in the blistering heat of the summer, and walks her dogs whenever she feels like it.

“The amount I spent on drugs for the first half of the year would probably pay for the procedure,” she said. “Ì have a life again.”

Walsh's wildest dreams were realized when her multiple sclerosis symptoms abated -her mobility improved so much that the wheelchair she'd been fitted for was left to gather dust.

Like before, Walsh feels a million times better.

As recently as October 2010, the 28-year old Devon resident suffered from the debilitating symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis (MS). Like many victims of MS, she was often unable to perform simple tasks, and was easily exhausted by any physical activity.

"I hadn't felt my feet in over a year," she said. "Almost immediately (after the procedure) the feeling came back, and my energy came back. Now I feel like I did before I got sick. I am totally free of symptoms.

"Within five days she was on the treadmill, going at a full sprint," said Kewley.

After two hours in recovery following a medical procedure, Lana Dziengielewski, who was diagnosed with the degenerate disease Multiple Sclerosis in 1997, got out of the bed and walked to the bathroom without her cane which accompanied her every step for the last two years.

Exactly eight weeks later, the 39-year-old mother of two was sitting in the Record-Gazette office in a self-proclaimed state of continued disbelief around the fact that 95 per cent of the debilitating symptoms she began struggling with at the age of eleven, were gone.

"But to get back quality of life is a blessing right there. I have two teenage sons who have missed out on so much because of me. Now, that's just gone."

"There's no more MS fatigue," she said. This symptom was the worst she said, as she could sleep for 12 hours and still feel tired. She described it as a heavy full body suit, and experienced it every single day.

"Instantly that was gone. Wiped away. And the colours are so bright. Before it was like living in a fog and now everything has more definition."

"Within 15 minutes I knew it was working," she said. "I could feel the warmth in my leg and it was turning pink. It was always blue before that because there was no circulation."

The doctor took her hand and Andries took half a dozen steps without support for the first time in at least four years.

"I said to the doctor 'I've never felt that before,'" she said. "He said, 'You're kidding?'"

Andries still walks with the aid of a walker because CCSVI weakened her right leg considerably, but she often uses only a cane.

Last year Andries said her goal was to be able to take her granddaughter's hand and walk with her. At the time, the now two-year-old Danielle was just starting to walk.

"Now she's running all over the place," Andries said. "And for the first time she has seen me walk. When she saw me after the treatment, she said, 'Mom, that doctor got grandma new legs.'"

Darrell Derksen, a 49-year-old MS patient in Saskatoon, recently returned from Sofia, Bulgaria, where he had the surgery performed 2 1/2 weeks ago.

"They can call it a placebo, and they can call it what they want," he said. "I'm not skipping rope yet but I can climb up stairs better and I have a better stride in my walk.

"My energy level has gone up. I'm sleeping better and some of the tension I was carrying in my neck has greatly improved.

Kelly Terry, a 36-year-old MS patient from Melfort, Sask., had the liberation procedure two weeks ago in Bulgaria and spent $10,500 on the trip. His mother died from MS and told him he needed to be part of the cure, he said.

"My experience so far has been phenomenal," Terry said. "My vision has improved. I couldn't put five words together before and now my speech is better. It's not a placebo effect, it's something within your body that's improved. I can finally play with my daughter again. I can walk without a cane."

For six weeks after undergoing the controversial therapy for her MS, May Feitsma said she felt immense relief, energy and hope. But the degenerative disease ultimately again chained her breath, hands, feet and head after she paid $25,000 to travel to India.

Yet Feitsma, 51, is convinced that once doctors find a way to permanently keep her right jugular vein open — perhaps with a stent — her MS will retreat.

"I've seen results that were so good I know that it works," said Feitsma, who had her operation March 30.

Soon after, her blue feet turned a flush pink. Her breathing went from laboured and tiring to smooth and refreshing. Then her headaches disappeared — until five to six weeks later.

The procedure helped with Ferrara’s fogginess, but it wasn’t a miracle cure. “It’s different for everyone. I didn’t get up and just start walking like the people they showed on the news. But I didn’t put my hopes up too high. If you ask me, the Zamboni treatment is a patch, not a cure,” he says, adding that he believes the stem cell transplant was more beneficial. “The transplant, to me, was worth a lot more because I was at the stage where I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t speak and I couldn’t swallow. I couldn’t do anything for myself... I was at the point where I was just going down so rapidly.”

Although Ferrara now uses a walker and sometimes relies on his wheelchair, he has noticed improvements in both his speech and leg strength.

Several days after the therapy, Gooding's mobility had vastly improved. The limp disappeared and she has since taken on more dynamic routines in the gym. The fatigue that was her constant companion has lifted to the point where she can nearly log a full day of shopping.

Steve Scheers of Delhi, Norfolk's superintendent of forests and cemeteries, had liberation therapy performed at a clinic in Michigan several weeks ago. He too was close to leaving his job but has since noticed a vast improvement in his symptoms.

Little things like seeing her toes move, feeling them, are signs of success for Liza Glynn.

“Right away my right arm was a lot easier and the swelling in my feet was gone,” Glynn said.

The Brentwood Bay woman had one goal, to drop some of her symptoms. While she’s still bound by her motorized wheelchair, Glynn has already dropped two of her medications.

“If I can cut back and still be able to function, that’s what I’d prefer,” she said.