This Is MS Multiple Sclerosis Knowledge & Support Community

http://www.betterhealthguy.com/joomla/i ... 0_v3.5.pdf

In office, use EECP (enhanced external counterpulsation) from China. Blood pressure cuffs go on legs. When
heart relaxes, cuffs inflate to return to the heart. Returning blood to heart artificially. Results are
phenomenal in improving brain function. CCSVI parameters dramatically improve with EECP.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_e ... rpulsation

The EECP treatment gently but firmly compresses the blood vessels in the lower limbs to increase blood flow to your heart. Each wave of pressure is electronically timed to the heartbeat, so that the increased blood flow is delivered to your heart at the precise moment it is relaxing. When the heart pumps again, pressure is released instantaneously. This lowers resistance in the blood vessels in the legs so that blood may be pumped more easily from your heart.

EECP may encourage blood vessels to open small channels that become extra branches. These channels or collaterals may eventually become "natural bypass" vessels to provide blood flow to heart muscle. This contributes to the relief of angina symptoms.
Patients who are accepted for treatment must undergo 35 hours of EECP therapy. Treatment is administered 1-2 hours a day, five days a week, for 7 weeks.

Could this be used clinically for CCSVI?

I recently started having another skin infection, the opposite foot from last time. While I blamed last year's infection on a fall with my tricycle, this year's was apparently caused by toenails in the bed. Anyway a home-care nurse came to look at it, and said I have poor circulation in my legs. I knew that, and blamed the slow healing last year on it.

Anyway, she BTW mentioned that the venous pump for your feet and legs is your calf muscles, which you operate when you put weight on your toes. Obviously, I don't do that enough. It sounds like this cuff device could be good for my leg and foot circulation. Where do I get one?

thrombosis hose work in the same kind of way. Mine were $32.00 and they were required after the by-pass surgery. Thigh high and hard to put on, but it gets blood moving to your heart. Raising your feet above your heart when you lay down works well also.

This is done at a hospital or clinic as an outpatient procedure. It's covered in angina patients but the angina has to be class III or class IV (in Canada). In the US, it's covered for patients with any class of angina. http://globalcardiocare.com/history_of_eecp

Here's what I found interesting:

Progenitor cells were measured before and each week for four weeks during therapy and progenitor cells increased each week. “One possible explanation for the long-term benefit is that EECP is a regenerative therapy. Progenitor cells line the endothelium. The shear forces described above are forceful enough to dislodge these cells so they enter the circulation. These cells will find damaged endothelium, ischemic myocardium or apoptotic cells and will proliferate so the benefit extends well beyond the treatment period. The number of circulating stem cells has been correlated with vascular disease, age and prognosis. Thus increasing these circulating cells seems a reasonable target for therapy “
The mechanism of increased shear is reversal of flow at the endothelial border

http://doc2doc.bmj.com/forums/medical-e ... ve-therapy
Endothelial stem cells break free into the bloodstream and then head off to find damaged endothelium elsewhere in the body to heal?
It's from this article: January 1, 2010, "EECP is a Regenerative Therapy," published in Frontiers in Bioscience magazine, clinical researchers from Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine and Cardiology

Health is a state when regeneration is in balance with degeneration. Disease can occur if either regeneration or degeneration is out of balance.

another interesting statement about eecp:

There are preliminary data suggesting that EECP can help induce the formation of collateral vessels in the coronary artery tree, by stimulating the release of nitric oxide and other growth factors in within the coronary arteries. There is also evidence that EECP may act as a form of “passive” exercise, leading to the same sorts of persistent beneficial changes in the autonomic nervous system that are seen with real exercise.

http://heartdisease.about.com/cs/corona ... EECP_2.htm

I definitely had dysautonomia prior to CCSVI treatment, and I definitely wasn't capable of working out the way I am now. The autonomic nervous system is wonderful when it's working right.

munchkin wrote:thrombosis hose work in the same kind of way. Mine were $32.00 and they were required after the by-pass surgery. Thigh high and hard to put on, but it gets blood moving to your heart. Raising your feet above your heart when you lay down works well also.

With EECP the benefit might be because it is timed to the heartbeat, so it compresses at the right time and then relaxes. I don't know how tightly it compresses in comparison to compression hose. But compression hose is cheap and available. Exercise is cheap and available to those who can as well. I found the bit about endothelial stem cells and EECP as regenerative therapy to be intriguing. Only I imagine those endothelial cells going to our blood-brain barrier and our jugulars and azygous veins.

Well, at this evening of my life I am faced with decisions about how I want to dispose of the last few chunks of money I might find, and also what to save up for if I can manage that. The other day I tried out a Bioness walking device. I was impressed, but it is $7K.

Angioplasty is not a device, but counts in my figuring. It will be above $10K, probably, all included.

We need a new roof. The last one cost $4K, but I am determined this time to get shingles that will last my lifetime, which unless great breakthroughs are made, is likely to be at most 10 to 20 years. The last few years will not be in my home anyway, but I'd like to hang on to it for the rest.

We need a new car, and what I saw yesterday on YouTube leads me to know that gasoline-only will contribute to the deaths of my children, and any grandchildren that come along. Natural gas is cleaner, but it's overall human energy consumption that is killing us. When the polar ice caps are gone, (which may be in my short remaining years) it will be 'game-over', because being white, they are the only thing that reflects enough heat. So I would be a better human (if a good human can exist, which I am beginning to doubt) if I spent the money on a horse.

Plus my wife and kids, I'm sure, have a few items to add.

So ECCP may be outside my means as a Consumer. For me it might be very useful. Not useful so much because of my heart, which could use some collateral circulation to assist or replace the stents in my chest. No, my latest problem is bad leg circulation, which ECCP can't help but improve. If it helped my neck and brain too, so much the better.

Tough decisions.

I am already wearing compression stockings, but there is one nagging concern. I think they are making me dizzy. It is immediately reversible if I take them off. I first believed in the possibility of CCSVI, when I noted that I would not lose my balance so much in the shower and elsewhere, if I kept my head up. Picking up the soap was the most dangerous thing I was doing, given the presence of very hard, sometimes sharp, and very slippery surfaces.

So I was prepared when I found this out about my compression hose. I definitely think I have reflux, and now I also think it is worsened by that. High venous blood pressure, and reflux. Changes in my lower leg volume are affecting that. Hard to believe, but somebody give me a better explanation and I will embrace it.

What effect would ECCP have? I'd like to find out, because it could improve both my heart and my feet. There might be a physical as well as financial cost, however, in my mere anecdotal case.

Just in case someone wants a quick visual reference:

I don't know how to argue, go for ccsvi, if the money is needed elsewhere. CCSVI treatment doesn't always work but when it does! Dangit 1eye I'd prefer you get the roof and the car and the angioplasty. And the bioness device. I think EECP is just something I dug up out of the internet and posted here? You'd have to look up who does it locally, and if it could be covered. I've taken to wearing compression stockings too. Pretty ones with butterflies on them. I think compression stockings would increase the blood volume elsewhere in the body (instead of pooling in the legs) but I do not know how that would lead to dizziness. How frustrating that it does.

*bump*
EECP being discussed in the plethysmography thread, but here it was discussed in the context of CCSVI at a ccsvi conference in 2011 (thriiive.com)