This Is MS Multiple Sclerosis Knowledge & Support Community

Today is World MS Day, raising awareness of this chronic disease.

It is one of the most common disabling neurological conditions amongst young adults. More than two million people in the world have MS - 100,000 of them in the UK.

To mark the awareness day, we spoke to David Bates, Professor of Neurology, Newcastle University, one of the UK’s leading experts on MS, about current & future treatments, MS research and problems in the workplace............ [Read More - http://www.msrc.co.uk/index.cfm/fuseact ... ageid/2479 ]

If you go back over the decades, people have been given arsenic, snake venom, dietary changes, hyperbaric oxygen and more recently they have been given so-called [unapproved treatment with] stem cells.

Would you class the new CCSVI (chronic cerebro-spinal venous insufficiency) treatment as being in that category?
I would put that squarely in the group with the topics I have mentioned. The reason I say that is we know what happens when veins are occluded. We see people who have this condition in the draining veins from the head. We know that apparent narrowings of these vessels are commonly seen and do not cause these changes of multiple sclerosis. Most importantly of all, multiple sclerosis is due to inflammation within the nervous system and the narrowing or slowing of fluid through a vein would not necessarily cause that.

This guy is really ready to open his mind. not

daverestonvirginia wrote:If you go back over the decades, people have been given arsenic, snake venom, dietary changes, hyperbaric oxygen and more recently they have been given so-called [unapproved treatment with] stem cells.

Would you class the new CCSVI (chronic cerebro-spinal venous insufficiency) treatment as being in that category?
I would put that squarely in the group with the topics I have mentioned. The reason I say that is we know what happens when veins are occluded. We see people who have this condition in the draining veins from the head. We know that apparent narrowings of these vessels are commonly seen and do not cause these changes of multiple sclerosis. Most importantly of all, multiple sclerosis is due to inflammation within the nervous system and the narrowing or slowing of fluid through a vein would not necessarily cause that.

This guy is really ready to open his mind. not

Hey Dave---I miss you 'round here. Hope you're doing well.

You know, what's really, really funny to me is all of the "quack treatments" listed by the good doctor create vasodilation and oxygenation. From scorpion and snake venom, to extra O2, to the Swank Diet, to all of those "crazy alternative treatments"....what do they do for the immune system? Not much. What do they do to address the vascular system. A lot. So, all of these decades of insane and goofy MS patients who felt a bit better getting stung by a bee (vasodilator) mean nothing. All of those wacky Swank patients who maintained remission eating a low fat diet (high fat link to inflammation and endothelial disruption) were kooks.
Whatever. If that doctor had MS (like George Jelinek does) he'd be trying out those kooky treatments. Because they work. But they are only treatments.

(BTW-The doctor is probably referring to the temporary jugular narrowings of dialysis patients--which are not lifelong, and treated with jugular stents. We do not have many studies of congenital venous malformations in the jugular veins. We do for the liver, but not the brain.)

The diagnosis of CCSVI is not a "treatment". It is a diagnosis of a known medical condition----venous insufficiency. Which is not quackery. Which can happen anywhere in the human body where truncular venous malformations cause veins to be unable to adequately drain an organ. And it causes inflammation. Tell Budd Chiari patients that they do not need a new liver--they are just goof balls.

sigh.
don't be a stranger, Dave-
cheer

Cheerleader, I am doing very well lately, thanks for asking. Had some trouble with depression this past Fall but I seem to have that under control now.

I have been keeping an eye on the board, following the CCSVI threads. I am planning on having the screening diagnostic ultrasounds to evaluate Multiple Sclerosis patients for Chronic Cerebro-Spinal Venous Insufficiency (CCSVI) at Georgetown University Hospital in the near future. I live in the DC area. I will be sure to post my experiences with the process.

Dave

The Georgetown team seems to be wonderful--wish you well with that, and hope there are more answers for you, Dave.
best,
cheer

"From scorpion and snake venom, to extra O2, to the Swank Diet, to all of those "crazy alternative treatments"....what do they do for the immune system"

Hey Cheer I never claimed to be a treatment or help the immune system!!!

Bad joke, sorry.