Inclined Bed Therapy

[katie45]

to add a touch more to this....day 2.... I am hurting all over..i seriously question the wisdom of ever having sat in this w/c. this going from incline to w/c constantly cannot be helping anything. i have no choice as i live alone ( have to call fire dept.to put me back in chair on days that spasms send me out of w/c to the floor, or i can't rise from toilet ,,dignity has long since left my vocabulary. I see a glimmer of hope!!...katie





Freinds are God's way of appologizing for 'family'

[joyj]

i am on week 5 today, my legs and hands are very numb, the worse theyve ever been. they had been getting slowly better, is this normal.

[AndrewKFletcher]

Joyj

No this is not a normal reaction To tilting the bed.

You may need to lower your bed again to see if it resolves, or at least experiment with the angle at different elevations.

Can remember other reports from people with progressive ms stating they began having relapsing remitting stages, which they recognised as the illness developed, but generally experienced improvements.

Here is what a lady stated on the 2nd pilot study which may be of interest.

Andrew K Fletcher:
Good News! I'm Finally Getting Good Results.Monday, 14-Jun-1999 13:46:10 writes:
I've been doing the inclined bed since January. I've had M.S. for over 20 years -diagnosed in 1986 as relapsing-remitting M.S. Two years ago, I had a serious attack and ended up in the hospital for 2 weeks paralyzed from the waist down-no feeling and no motion. After a couple of months of steroids and other drugs, I became able to walk first with a walker and then with a cane very short distances.I was still left with lots of fatique, weak legs, balance problems, painful pins and needles in the legs and feet, abdominal muscle spasms, incontinance, and sleepless nights. My diagnosis became secondary progressive M.S.I decided to get off all drugs(much to my neurolist's dismay).I then found Betty Iams on the computer and began her regimen of strict diet, exercise, supplements, meditation, and I've added acupuncture. It feels great to be in control. This is a lifetime regimen for me. I'd been coasting along not getting better, but not getting worse when I read about the inclined bed. I decided to try it-what could I lose? Right away, the painful abdominal muscle spasms started to subside and sleep became somewhat better. Then nothing happened. Then I started getting worse. I decided to give up the inclined bed -this after 3 months. One problem, however-I can't sleep on a flat bed anymore! Andrew wrote for me to hang in there that it was expected that I get worse before I get better. Everyday I waited. Then like Andrew said, I started getting better and better. This past month has been amazing! I even walked up and down a flight of stairs with my cane unaided. Fatigue has gone, the abdominal muscle spasms have gone, t he painful pins and needles are subsiding, leg strength is getting better so that I can walk greater distances, and balance is much better. I still have incontinance and sleep problems, but given time, I know those problems will be gone, too. One very interesting thing happened with my eyes recently. I'm very nearsighted and had my prescription for my contacts checked 3 months ago. Last week, I went back to the eye doctor's complaining that I just couldn't see. He checked my eyes again and much to his amazement, he found that they had improved greatly since my check-up 3 months ago!I wrote Andrew about this happening and he feels that sleeping on an inclined bed can help the optic nerve to regenerate and repair the damage of long term M.S.Let me encourage anyone who is trying the inclined bed to stick with it and don't think it won't work. I'm proof it can. My whole family and I are so grateful to Andrew Fletcher. Liz Steinbrueck


You may be in the middle of a relapse or you may be having difficulty with the angled sleep. The only way to find out is to either revert back to sleeping flat or experiment with the angle.

Hope this is helpful

Thanks for sharing your observations.

Andrew

[happy_canuck]

Hi folks,

On incline since Nov 30; increased to 5 degrees Jan 2.

- BP upon waking 138/88; pulse 51
- urine colour much darker
- no getting up for me or hubbie through the night
- we both are experiencing waking up too early (4-5 a.m.), but we go back to sleep for last hour or so
- full incline now feels comfortable; first 3 nights were a little odd

Cheers,

Sandra

[AndrewKFletcher]

to add a touch more to this....day 2.... I am hurting all over..i seriously question the wisdom of ever having sat in this w/c. this going from incline to w/c constantly cannot be helping anything. i have no choice as i live alone ( have to call fire dept.to put me back in chair on days that spasms send me out of w/c to the floor, or i can't rise from toilet ,,dignity has long since left my vocabulary. I see a glimmer of hope!!...katie

Freinds are God's way of appologizing for 'family'

Your aches are most likely due to Inclined Therapy. Do they resemble aches you would get after extensive exercise?

These aches were felt by a lot of people during the first few weeks of I.T.

Thank you for posting your experienced Katie. Much appreciated and I am sure they will be of interest to the readers of these threads.

In the other Inclined Bed Therapy thread in the General section of the forum there are parameters posted to help everyone understand the way this therapy works.


Andrew

[AndrewKFletcher]

Hi Sandra,

thank you for your update.

I have set up a group on Facebook for discussion about Inclined Therapy.

Hopefully we will reach a few more people with ms using this.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?v=wal ... 5324668896

[Algis]

10 days now with 10cm elevation.

I am feeling roughly the same. This morning I woke up with my heart pounding in my head noisily - But I am not sure this is related and why would that happen (blood pressure? meds?).
I have a bit of 'bones sore' but I know it is acceptable/forecast-ed.
Before this week-end I will try to put the bed a full 16cm and will experiment more maybe

Thank you Andrew

[Robnl]

Andrew,

Please let me know if it is necessary to go to 5 degrees from 4.3 (current heighth)

Robert

[AndrewKFletcher]

5 degrees was the height I arrived at by observing the way solutes flowed through a closed water filled loop of tubing placed on top of a tilted mattress.

It was also the angle used by the ancient Egyptians 4 thousand years ago, who incidentally were involved in helping people with spinal cord injuries according to translations of hyroglyphics.
http://thejns.org/doi/pdf/10.3171/FOC-0 ... ookieSet=1

Question is where they using an inclined bed to heal their bodies and maintain their strength and endurance. I believe they were!

That said, I think you will find the slightly lower elevation easier to adapt to so suggest you remain at that angle for at least a month. Then raise the bed to the full five degrees when you feel comfortable to do so.

Andrew

[joyj]

thanks for reply andrew, ive been ill all night with bad stomach, i think all the numbness is due to a bug. i"m going to stick on 6inch incline and see how i am after bug goes.

[katie45]

what the heck


Andrew, I read the threads you referred....Ouch! quite the reception you got!
Qualifications? Nobody's 'qualifications' have done a damned thing for me (and countless others so far) I tried the antibiotic regime for three years. I can say doxycycline did have some good effect. I have since read somewhere that doxy
lowers iron levels which falls neatly in to the reflux lesions theory..dr. Z and yourself. I hesitate to post this publicly as sarah and her husband were very supportive while I struggled with this attempt, but I must say I have completely lost faith in the medical realm and truly veiw layman logic as the best hope for any/all so-called 'auto immune' conditions.. I am almost convinced that I could have an hereditary iron overload problem...sister and brother do. (her liver transplant, his heart attack) But the available testing in bc
is hardly worth begging drs. to draw the blood...this, in my logic, begs the question..why have all the 'professionals' not even suggested this?

Noticed 5 minutes ago i actually cut a lemon in half to put in my water. no problem at all! normally, i would be in tears with the effort, lack of grip strength,coordination.... my sleep schedule is nuts...slept 3pm to midnite..3 am now.
notice right foot less purple and swollen.

_________________
Freinds are God's way of appologizing for 'family'

[Dovechick]

Nice to hear you are noticing some slight improvements. I'm trying it too, but it is too early to tell if I have any improvement with the neuropathy. Keep posting...

[tzootsi]

Andrew, I'm a little confused about the bed height - should it be 6" or 5 degrees? If you are raising an 80" bed up by 6", isn't that more like 8 degrees? Unless I'm doing my calculations wrong, isn't a 4" rise on 80" a 5 degree incline?

[Motiak]

Andrew, I'm a little confused about the bed height - should it be 6" or 5 degrees? If you are raising an 80" bed up by 6", isn't that more like 8 degrees? Unless I'm doing my calculations wrong, isn't a 4" rise on 80" a 5 degree incline?

I think you've got your calculations wrong (assuming I'm doing this right as well, I haven't had to do geometry in years) I would think that a 5 degree angle would just be:

tan(5)= x/80
tan(5)*80= x
x=7

[happy_canuck]

[quote="MotiakI would think that a 5 degree angle would just be:

tan(5)= x/80
tan(5)*80= x
x=7[/quote]

That's what we calculated too for our 80" (king) size bed.

OK, update today -- on incline since Nov 30; increased to 5 degrees Jan 2.

- both hubbie and I had that back ache when awaking (quickly disappears without drugs when we sit or stand). My neck crackles too -- those pops like when you crack your knuckles. I go to my chiropractor tomorrow, so will update you what she says. So far, she's been most impressed.

- my BP going up again, this a.m. was 152/92; pulse 51

- I got up once in the night for a trip to the bathroom; hubbie, pre-incline would get up once a night, now he no longer does

- hubbie woke at 4 a.m. thinking it was morning again, but went back to sleep

Cheers,

Sandra