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Posted: Thu Mar 15, 2007 6:45 pm Post subject: Currently reading: Heal Your Heart with EECP
I am currently reading Heal Your Heart with EECP by Debra Braverman, M.D. This Enhanced External Counterpulsation (EECP) supposedly is "the only noninvasive way to overcome heart disease" and may improve many other conditions--diabetes, congestive heart failure, lupus, peripheral neuropathy and others (though not mentioning MS). Its mechanism is to increase blood flow (by "passive exercise" as the author puts it).
It is painless, noninvasive, and relatively inexpensive (approved by the FDA, Medicare, covered by most insurance plans). If I can find a practitioner in my area, I would try it. Heck, I've told my husband that I would wear a chicken head around my neck, if it would help! This therapy uses a series of blood pressure cuffs to push the blood when the heart rests (diastole)--piece of cake compared to a chicken head!
Has anyone tried this or know anything about it? Just wondering.
Apparently, this doctor is a clinical assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and lives in Philadelphia.
Joined: Nov 06, 2004 Posts: 356 Location: Ottawa, Ont. Canada
Posted: Sat Mar 17, 2007 10:06 am Post subject:
We have one center in Ottawa which uses it for congestive heart failure. Apparently, it really helps them, when it is in it's final stage. Don't know if I would try it for ms. It basically helps the return of blood back to the heart between contractions. Don't know how my brain would react to this extra pressure...
Posted: Sat Mar 01, 2008 6:02 pm Post subject: Dr. Atkins on EECP
Since I believe that excess insulin initiates my MS cascade and I am trying to lower that level with diet, I have been reading Dr. Atkins again. Each time I re-read material, I pick up things that hadn't registered earlier.
This time his comment that "arterial passageways are damaged by insulin itself" has special meaning for me.
And he has positive things to say about EECP:
Quote:
From Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution (by Robert C. Atkins, M.D.)
Page 312. "Enhanced External Counter Pulsation (EECP). If you have diagnosed heart problems and a positive stress test, EECP is used to create collateral blood vessels supplying the heart muscle. Sometimes called a "natural bypass," EECP uses blood pressure cuffs applied to the patient's legs, which are repeatedly inflated and deflated, to force blood up from the legs to the heart. It has been government tested and funded, is currently being administered at four hundred sites in the United States and is reimbursed by health insurers. I strongly recommend it for our heart patients, so much so that the cardiology unit at the Atkins Center for Complementary Medicine provides about one hundred EECP treatments weekly."
I wonder if this wouldn't help those with MS who just CAN'T exercise.
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