This Is MS Multiple Sclerosis Community: Knowledge & Support

Dose Cyclophosphamide in the treatment of MS?

Sorry if that's been asked before, I waswn't paying attention..

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Apologies for my terrible username. I never thought I'd use the forum much when I registered..

There is an immune system reaction in CCSVI....the damage of the iron deposition and hypoxic injury to brain tissue activates the immune system- and this also happens in stroke and neurovascular disease. We see oligoclonal bands in stoke and dementia patients.

So, immune ablating or modulating medications would have a positive affect and stop the t and b cells from cleaning up and errantly harming myelin. But, the damage to gray matter from iron and lack of oxygen continues. At a certain point MS becomes progressive, and no immune modulating medication can help...this is probably because the immune system has "given up" the fight and has backed down, or brain tissue is so damaged the communication with the immune system is disrupted.

In the CCSVI paradigm, immune system damage to myelin is secondary. The primary cause of injury is iron deposition, slowed perfusion and hypoxic injury due to the reflux of blood back into the brain. Immune modulating meds are going after the wrong target. White matter damage isn't good....but it's the gray matter damage that starts the immune cascade.
cheer

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Husband dx RRMS 3/07
dx dual jugular vein stenosis (CCSVI) 4/09
dual stents placed 5/09
CCSVI in MS

Thanks for that. That makes sense.

So I suppose that the answer as to how CCSVI theory might explain the way that I, exclusively, have relapses only in Spring, is pretty much the same answer as that for the demography/geohraphic distribution and MS thread in this forum?

Thanks again.

_________________
Apologies for my terrible username. I never thought I'd use the forum much when I registered..

Well, yes and no. In a vascular paradigm, rather than an autoimmune paradigm, the questions are a bit different. What happens in the spring that might be an "endothelial disrupter?" Endothelial disrupters constrict the blood vessels and make stenosis worse. Do you have seasonal allergies? Do you get a cold/virus? Have you had less vitamin D over the winter months? Are you under more stress? Any or all of these could contribute to making your stenosis tighter and the reflux worse, depositing more iron in the brain and calling in the immune system janitors. And creating a "relapse."
cheer

_________________
Husband dx RRMS 3/07
dx dual jugular vein stenosis (CCSVI) 4/09
dual stents placed 5/09
CCSVI in MS