This Is MS Multiple Sclerosis Community: Knowledge & Support

Excuse my English, I'm french-speaking and never write in your language.

I've been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1980. I had my first MRI in 2001, and five others since that time.

Since I saw CTV's program W5 last friday on CCSVI, I wonder why our radiologists didn't notice venous anomalies in the data from our past MRI's. Is it so difficult to detect a twisted or malformed vein?

Thanks in advance.

sonia... People with MS don't usually get their necks imaged. And if they did get their necks imaged, no one would think to look at their jugular or azygous veins. What Dr Haacke wants to do is to change the protocol for MRI imaging of MS patients to include the neck. So whenever a person with MS, or a person suspected to have MS, gets an MRI their neck veins will be scanned and people will actually look at the veins for possible stenosis. Wont that be be great? If every MS MRI could detect stenosis then the question would be moot. I hope Dr Haacke' new MRI protocol does the trick and then there will be gazillions of datat on CCSVI and MS !!!

sonia52, the MRIs you've had wouldn't show the narrowing of jugular veins. It is an MRV which shows the stenosis.

Rokkit got to it before I did lol. Yes, without any contrast dye and a heart monitor to dampen the signals, a regular MRI won't show much. Heck our brains are full of blood vessels hither and yon and can't see those either on a regular MRI. I know I looked at my thoracic MRI from last year to see if there was anything to see back then and nothing. Mark.

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RRMS Dx'd 2007, first episode 2004. Bilateral stent placement, 3 on left, 1 stent on right, at Stanford August 2009. Watch my operation video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwc6QlLVtko, Virtually symptom free since, no relap

OK. Thanks a lot to you. It answered perfectly to my question. And it reassures me...

It seemed to me unthinkable that they could have been able to see the problem ... but without doing so.

Last summer, I had a pelvic scan for another problem, and they found what they called a "small network of small blood vessels between the heart and the kidney". They told me it was a very unusual malformation. I don't know if it could be the result of blocked veins, but I will ask my physician and speak to him of CCSVI.