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It was mentioned in Bologna, that progressive MS is continuing to progress for 18 months after the balloon procedure, and then some recovery is beginning. Any theories on what might be going on with that?

Here's mine: the progressive MS brain and spinal chord are continuing to decline until the buildup of iron (from before treatment) is somehow mitigated by the body. Apparently, it takes the body 18 months to deal with the iron.

Rokkit

I wondered about that and wondered if hours of lecture and note taking combined with a non English speaking doctor resulted in a shift in meaning.

The progressive form of MS seems less sensitive to treatment. HOWEVER, there is a stabilization of progression at 18 months, and an inversion of the progressive course. It just takes more time.

It is hard to see why a person would continue to progress when they had their circulation restored, though I can imagine a long time to any true recovery of function actually being able to initiate.

Gici a progressive person that was treated said he felt some improvement right away...........

My own progressive course seems better in subtle ways, though I am encouraged by the 18 month issue for a "inversion" I'll take that...

but if it has to be true that we slide for 18 months, your idea as an explanation seems a good candidate for why....

When I read about the 18 months, I took it as that is the point in time they were reporting on, and at that point they saw improvement but until then just stabilization. It's probably wishful thinking on my part as I am SP and in a wheelchair.

Yes its hard to definitively say why progression contiunues for 18 months for PPMS. However, if we need an explanation for this, I think we would also like an explanation why some RRMS took 4hrs to recover while others took 4days (a factor of 24x).

My personal crazy theory, is that the "tight junctions" in the BBB take time to heal, and the disease progress to completely stop. However I also think it may be different reasons for an individual (and I do like the iron theory as well ) So basically, I'll go with anyones ideas... for now.