Transient Global Amnesia and Valves / CCSVI

[daniel]

Not sure if this was posted here before:

http://bodyodd.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011 ... mory-clean

...snip...
The closest thing to an explanation researchers have for this sex-triggered amnesia is that the problem may not begin in the brain, but in the neck. In a January 2010 study published in the journal Stroke, Ameriso and his colleagues conducted sonograms of the necks of 142 patients who'd experienced transient global amnesia within the last week. They found that 80 percent of the patients had what is called insufficiency of the valves in the jugular vein.

This vein, which runs down the side of the neck, carries spent blood from the brain back to the heart. Valves in the veins prevent blood from flowing backward toward the head, but if the valves don't close sufficiently, blood could seep back upward.

Memory mysteries

The best guess for what might be happening is that patients unwittingly trigger the transient global amnesia by raising the pressure inside their abdomens. This is called the "Valsalva maneuver," familiar as the "bearing down" people might do when lifting weights, defecating or even having sex. The increased pressure increases the resistance to blood flowing down the jugular veins, and insufficient valves may allow deoxygenated blood to push back up the neck. Oxygen-poor blood then "piles up" in the veins draining the brain, especially in central brain regions that are key to memory formation. The result could be transient amnesia.
...snip...

EDIT: sorry just saw it mentioned in a few other posts: http://www.thisisms.com/forum/search.ph ... ds=amnesia

[haleygates]

In relation to this post I just wanted to share what I have read about a rare case of TGA.The report is actually about a 54-year-old woman who experienced memory loss under strange conditions. According to hospital doctors at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C., the normally healthy female produced amnesia after having sex with her husband. She was not able to remember events of the past twenty four hours, and newly formed memories were also hazy.Source of article:Woman discovers that sex causes amnesia

[Cece]

Newly formed memories are hazy and she can't remember events of the last day.... It makes the news when it happens after sex, but when it happens regularly as part of MS memory impairment, it is just MS.

I have a poor memory. There was a time, five years ago right after a relapse, when I would read a magazine and as soon as I turned the page, I could not remember what was on the page I'd just read. Then I would turn back, read it again, and turn the page, and still not be able to remember.

It's easy to forget how bad it was, now that I'm better. That could be memory-related too.

[munchkin]

Maybe the sex was really bad.

Cece, I agree that there is a tendency to attribute the negative things that happen to us as that's just MS. As I progress I see things happening that in the past I would just assume it's the MS and now I realize it's all about the blood flow or lack of or reflux. After being treated and having enough time to realize the benefits and then to experience the downward progression it's become very easy to relate to how blood flow is affecting my brain.

When I first started to have symptoms I remember driving to work and not knowing how I got there.

The issue of TGA maybe happening to us everyday and we just don't recognize it as TGA. The name that has been slapped on it is MS.

[CindyCB]

Well in many ways it has to be something of a similar nature doesn't it, if one of the theories for TGA is the blood refluxing back up into the brain for a short period of time then CCSVI is the same thing but the blood doesn't make it all the way out of the IJVs before washing back again.

Only with MS is leaves a leison as it's doing it more often, whereas TGA leaves no 'evidence' on scans, as suggested in some of the articles, maybe because it's a shorter process.