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After the surgery, she could feel her feet being tickled for the first time in years. The dizziness was gone and when laying in bed, she could lift her leg straight up in the air.

"Oh, and my feet are not cold all the time anymore. I am slowly starting to walk on my own again with the help of physio but am a little scared of falling still."

Before the treatment Tessier ... used to sleep away all of her free time. Within days of the liberation treatment, her energy came back and her some of her symptoms disappeared.

“I don’t have numbness in my hands and feet anymore,” she said. “I used to suffer from a lot of migraines. I haven’t had any migraines since.”

She now walks with the aid of two canes - painstakingly, but she walks. Her ice-cold hands and feet have warmed.

Colour has returned to her face. The pain in her legs has subsided. For the first time ever, an MRI showed no new MS lesions in her brain. She's even been able to regain her driver's licence.

"I got my life back," she said this week during a hearing at the Westin Hotel in Ottawa. "I was just going downhill. I think I have a chance now."


Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/health/Ott ... z1m66HpsYk

In the months since my operation, I've noticed some improvements. Nothing spectacular but at this point anything is welcome.
My feet are warm for the first time in years. My brain fog, a common aspect of MS, has lifted, making it easier to focus on tasks for longer. I can lift my behind off my wheelchair a little, which makes transferring easier. I'm no longer wiped out by heat and I have more energy, which helps with the intensive physiotherapy I'm doing now.

My MS fatigue is gone, my eyesight is returning to my right
eye, my hands and feet are warm. I still cannot walk, but I am
working on strengthening my legs. Most noteworthy is that
my fatigue is gone. On christmas day, for the first time in a
long time, we went to my mom’s for dinner and then over
to my sister’s place and I didn’t get tired.

Locally, Diana Gordon had the MS liberation therapy done in the United States in June 2010. Gordon said by the time she arrived in New York, she could no longer swallow properly and didn't even have the strength to cough.

During the short afternoon surgery, Dr. Gary Siskin widened both of Gordon's jugular veins and inserted a stent into the azygos vein.

Gordon said she now lives a normal life.

"There's no comparison to how I felt before, and how I feel now."

For Ms. Courtney, the effects of the surgery were almost immediate and they have lasted.

“I felt the difference in my hand in two hours,” she said.

Before she had suffered limited movement in her hand as well as a pins-and-needles sensation.

Her ability to walk has improved. Her legs no longer give out and she has stopped drifting to one side and walking into walls.

“I’ve never been so happy in my life since I had that surgery done,” said Mrs. Courtney. “I go to bed every night and thank God.”

She said some mild symptoms have remained, but there was an immediate improvement after the surgery and she no longer feels like her health is deteriorating.

Although he hasn’t been without his own health problems, Mr. Riles said he is still feeling the positive effects from the surgery.

“I don’t get fatigued any more,” he said, “ but I still haven’t got my balance back yet.”

Since his surgery in October 2010, Mr. Riles has been working part time, sometimes as much as 20 hours a week.

Cochranites Lesley Hegland (diagnosed with MS in 1992) and Richard Bartlett (diagnosed in 2006) went to Poland together to receive the treatment in December, 2010. Since then, both have noticed vast improvement in their mobility, balance and general quality of life; they both attribute their health improvements to the treatment, combined with healthy diets.

I spent 10 days there after the angioplasty doing physical therapy every day and finally understood why this treatment was being called “liberation.” Immediately when I came out of the anesthesia, I noticed my feet were no longer, cold, burning and numb. Within four days I had returned bladder control and through physiotherapy I increased my balance, strength and endurance. I had energy to take the stairs in our hotel, my husband and I walked the beautiful countryside of Costa Rica every day we were there, and when I got home my kids were ecstatic with my energy level and I had a returned enthusiasm for life!

"Five hours after the procedure I got up and I walked the corridor without my stick.

"My partner cried.

"She never saw me walking like that.

"I was walking before the procedure but with a lot of difficulty.

"I was not able to lift my leg easily.

"But five hours after the procedure I can walk without my stick, I can lift my leg, my back is stronger I'm taller.

"In the subsequent days and weeks I see that other functions which were not working 100%, they work."

Despite the study's limitations -- it was small, unblinded and had no placebo group -- Richardson believed the theory made sense and had two wire mesh stents implanted into her jugular vein to puff it back out (the standard balloon angioplasty wouldn't hold in her 99 percent flattened vein).

She felt better instantly.

Rich, who accompanied her mom to every test and procedure, decided to have her neck veins tested. Sure enough, she had a blocked jugular vein just like her mom did. And although she showed no MS symptoms, a brain scan revealed hallmark MS lesions in her brain. Like her mom, Rich had a stent inserted to open the narrowed vessel. She remains free of MS but often wonders where she would be if she hadn't been tested for the CCSVI.

* An amazing experience – five wheelchair bound patients getting out of the chair and walking in our office in one week
* The artist who could only see a circle on the wall – the circle that became a clock with numbers and minute hash marks between the numbers while still on the procedure table
* The doctor speaks and nystagmus ceases. After three years of silence, the physician-patient with MS said his three children's names and sang Happy Birthday to his wife. His ten years of constantly roving brainstem-controlled eye movement stopped post-procedure and his eyes are now steady and controlled.
* Having a patient discharged from a nursing home and going home again – a joy to any caregiver.
* A patient on the table saying, "I see colors again." The pain in my head is gone."

"Over 80% of patients have had a positive response to treatment with a reduction in their symptoms."