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t has been 10 months since Angela Lavallee underwent liberation treatment for progressive multiple sclerosis.

Since then, the St. George resident has made new strides with every passing season.

Last summer, Lavallee canoed with her husband, Phil, and treaded water in the pool. During the winter, she walked in knee-deep snow. A few weeks ago, she wore high heels. Last week, she danced to an entire song for the first time in five years.

“Every season that has come around, there were a million things that I did that I couldn’t do,” she said. “I am still walking proof that this procedure changed my life.”

Within 29 hours of having the treatment, she could lift her right leg without assistance and the neuro-fatigue that plagued her greatly diminished. Today, Lavallee continues to walk on her own but has noticed “flutters” of symptoms returning, such as some fatigue, imbalance and less strength in her right leg.

In November 2010, Hunt travelled to Frankfurt, Germany, where she was diagnosed with 80 per cent blockage of a vein in the left side of her neck.

Since undergoing an angioplasty to clear the vein, leg spasms that woke her every night have disappeared and her legs are no longer so stiff that they are difficult to bend.

“These are huge things for me in terms of quality of life,” she said. “Now, I am able to get myself out of bed because my legs bend more easily.

The entire procedure was only 30 minutes long and I was already wiggling my toes in recovery, which is something I couldn’t do for a long time."

“MS is a disease that does not offer a lot of hope. Nothing else has given me these improvements. Seven months in, the improvements are still there.”

Cece wrote:www.emcottawawest.ca/20110512/news/MS+s ... ch+on+Hill

First the good outcome:

Sharon Taylor, who attended with her husband James and sons Jordan and Nicholas, said she's doing good after having a follow-up ballooning in her left jugular vein due to a blockage.

"I'm doing great - I don't nap, my fatigue is gone, my cognitive function is good, and I use my cane very infrequently," she said.

Then the not good:

[Cooney] underwent the procedure but the benefits were undone as the stents used to hold open her veins became blocked with blood clots - clots that haven't been cleared out due to delays in administering clot-busting drugs commonly prescribed to stroke patients.

"Now it's too late - if it was done early, there'd be no problem," she said, adding that she's been forced to go back on medication and disability.

The immediate effect was that I finally had warm feet for the first time I can remember in my entire life

Since my return from Mexico, I have noticed the following: I feel much more awake

I have noticed an increase in cognitive function.

My friends and family tell me that I look better -- more awake, more animated,

"It always felt like I had ice water in my veins. My feet and legs were always so cold and stiff. And painful. My feet are pink again, and warm and not so swollen. There's flexibility. The blood is flowing again.

"I have some movement in one of my arms, and my left hand. I can put my arm by my side. Before I couldn't. The pain and stiffness in my body has been alleviated. And it's easier for me to breathe.

"I told my physiotherapist I wanted to sit up by myself on the edge of the bed. I sat for about 40 minutes without back support. I haven't been able to do that for four years. I used to have a feeling of fogginess in my head. I don't have that now."

"Compare that to being able to walk up the stairs to the hotel room just hours after the operation."

"It was quite incredible really. On the Friday we were in Amsterdam airport and Kenny was walking but kept having to rest. On the Monday on the way back he was walking around without any problems.

This Halloween, he took his son trick or treating for the first time.

"He didn't just sit in the car like the year before," said Mrs. Riles. "He was able to take him up to the door."

Among the MS symptoms that disappeared almost immediately were fatigue and muscle weakness, bladder control problems and the 'brain fog' that left Mr. Riles forgetful and confused about dates.

He still walks with a bit of a limp, but is much better than he was.

The day after his treatment, Mr. Riles and his wife went to a nearby mall and walked around for two hours. He no longer needed his cane to walk. Before his treatment, he could barely stand 10 minutes without his legs giving out.

"After dinner that first night in the hotel, everyone else went to take the elevator but Keith went bounding up the stairs," said Mrs. Riles. "Everyone else said, 'Stop showing off!'"

“Soon after the procedure my toes were of normal colour and warm. They had been cold and dark purple for decades”, she says.

Stiffness in her back was also reduced, as muscular cramps that had bothered her for years eased. She was able to resume her boating hobby.

“I have been released from a full-body cast, and I am moving around more easily. I can lift an object from the floor by bending over, I can put my socks on, and getting dressed is no longer painful.”

...she emphasises that nothing else that she has tried has eased the symptoms as much as the treatment that she got in Poland.

After treatment, Layh’s symptoms improved greatly for about two months, then began to revert. Several ultrasounds determined one clot had formed inside the stent, blocking half of the vein, and another had formed closer to the brain, blocking 80 per cent of the jugular.

Now, she no longer has to use her cane.

At Tuesday’s rally, she wore high heels, something she couldn’t have done before because of balance difficulties. Gone is her “MS hug,” the painful abdominal feeling of wearing a tight girdle.

Since the Mexico trip, Tim has been more alert, stronger and more energetic. He can shout and speak clearly, whereas before he was barely understandable,

Tim is still in a wheelchair, but can walk with a walker at times.

"It totally changed my life," said Barbara. "Before I was in a wheelchair, I had severe headaches, I always had tremors, always felt fatigued, I could barely hold anything and now all of that is gone.

"It's like I have a whole new life."

As her rapid-fire patter streams from her lips it's difficult for anyone to imagine this ball of energy bounding from sitting on a chair in her kitchen to her feet and back again was but a month ago a trembling mass of humanity imprisoned in a wheelchair and unable to look after herself.

"We believe this is something of a miracle," says her mother Patricia, looking at her daughter who was diagnosed with level seven second-stage progressive Multiple Sclerosis and thought to be incurable.

“My vision improved a ton and my legs don’t feel like they’re 50 pounds and full of concrete,” Wilbert said. “My pain is dramatically decreased.”

Wilbert felt immediate results with a feeling of warmth returning to his feet and sensation to his hands. In his hotel room, he was astonished to see his image in a mirror for the first time in years.

“I thought, ‘Am I really that scrawny,’” he said.

His appetite and energy soared by the day after the procedure as his pain diminished. Wilbert said he went from taking three to four pain pills a day to three to four a week.

"I feel alive," Carberry says. "I'm doing little things every day that I haven't done for years."

She remains in a wheelchair, but can stand using a walker without help - something she couldn't do before the treatment.

"I was so tired all the time," she says, remembering how fatigue and dizziness would drain her energy.

Now, she no longer needs help sitting up in bed. She can use the washroom by herself. Fed up of "being hung up like a side of beef," she banished to the basement the personal lift she once used to get in and out of her chair.

“The first three days I kind of went into a funk. I knew things had changed. I could feel my feet, which I hadn’t felt in three years,” she said. “They weren’t burning. They weren’t cold. But it wasn’t enough for me.

On day three Cooper had a burst of energy – something that the MS had stolen from her.

“I jumped out of bed,” she said. “I couldn’t wait to go to physio. When I was done the hour I didn’t think they had worked me hard enough … my energy level was just unbelievable.”

For three-and-a-half hours they sat bumper-to-bumper and it was then she realized that her bladder issues had stopped.

“It was just unbelievable. I wouldn’t have before been able to sit in the car stationary for 45 minutes and I would have been bouncing and jumping around,” she said.

After 15 years of deteriorating health, Preston has experienced quite the opposite since having an angioplasty performed on her neck veins to improve blood flow.

For one thing, she joined her husband Mike on a walk outside and didn't have to lean on him for support to go around a block. In fact, she felt so strong, they went around two blocks.

"I can see the street from our window and we've been here four years, but I never walked that far before," Amy Preston, 47, said during an interview with The Recorder and Times on Monday.

More telling, on their return to the house from another walk, she went upstairs without using the handrail for leverage "for the first time in a gazillion years."

It's something their teenaged children Mack and Allison have never seen before. Nor are they familiar with a stronger voice their mother employs while singing with the radio and calling for them in the house.

Meanwhile, her hands and feet are warmer, the benefit she believes of improved blood circulation, and she has regained long-lost sensation in her feet that revealed her shoes were too big and her socks too lumpy.

"Nothing is worse and a number of things are better for her."