This Is MS Multiple Sclerosis Knowledge & Support Community

Through someone's post here (sorry, I forget who that was) I came across this site: http://www.goldwarp.com/MultipleScleros ... index.html and I found this info especially interesting: http://www.goldwarp.com/MultipleScleros ... iency.html because of these lines:

Finally, we must recall the therapeutic benefit of central nervous system vasodilators in MS patients, pioneered by Bayard Horton of the Mayo Clinic, tested on acute MS symptoms for 14 years by Brickner, considered the treatment of choice for MS by most physicians during the 1950s, and proved effective beyond doubt at the Multiple Sclerosis Clinic of St. Joseph Hospital in Tacoma between 1946 and 1959 (see Histamine vasodilation .... on this site).

JL--Heads-up...magnesium. Have you heard of Mildred Seelig at U of North Carolina?

GG--Note mention of the vasoconstrictor, endothelin-1, which also was mentioned in your recent "salvia" post.

HarryZ--The author refers to Jonez and histamine.

Why wouldn't today's patients be given the option to try this "treatment of choice for MS by most physicians during the 1950s" ? Especially the difficult cases for which there is nothing else at the moment? Could it be unpatentable and therefore unprofitable for the drug companies????Nah....

Felt compelled to get off my hibernating a-- and go take my mag. Even took an extra one for good measure.
Thanks for this LC. It is very interesting.
(Had preeclampsia during first pregnancy. Never rec'd mag.)
Terry

ooo ooo i see vasodilation and it reminds me of the '70s klenner protocol which did me OH SO MUCH GOOD - and included multiple daily niacin flushes... aka vasodilation!
i will read the magnesium info too LC thanks
maybe i'll go niacin flush right now ;) i've done it twice over the last couple weeks, and it's only taking 50mg to make me fire-engine red lol

okay that's some big reading. a bit much for this late in the day, but funnily i also searched niacin vasodilation multiple sclerosis, and the first hit goes straight to that same site LC

http://www.goldwarp.com/MultipleScleros ... ation.html

Over the years, Jonez learned that allergic reactions from emotional upsets were as likely to bring on attacks and relapses as allergic reactions to foods or chemicals. He concluded that histamine relieved symptoms not only by dilating blood vessels, but also by stimulating the body's defenses against stress. Eight years later, the truth of this for Clinic patients was so clear that Dr. Hess stated:

Through the stimulation of the general adaptive mechanism of the body, corticosteroids and the other defenses against stress are measurably increased. This effect of histamine leads one to conjecture whether multiple sclerosis might be better classified as a stress disease.... Many of our patients relate the onset of their disease or its exacerbations to a traumatic experience or an emotional upset, and for such of our Clinic cases, we use the term 'emotional allergy.' [14]

--> JL interjects: hmm stress and nutrient dumping, among other things?

Nevertheless, the vasodilation of histamine may have been its primary benefit. According to Dr. Hess, vasodilation with niacin (vitamin B3) also helped in acute attacks [18]. Ophthalmologist Richard Brickner tested vasodilators extensively against MS, after his colleague C. Ray Franklin noticed spasms of retinal arterioles in multiple sclerosis patients experiencing attacks of impaired vision. They found that inhalation of the vasodilator amyl nitrite immediately abolished both the retinal spasms and the visual symptoms. Brickner concluded that he and Franklin were observing "transient, sudden miniature attacks of multiple sclerosis." [23]

For fourteen years Brickner tested vasodilators against acute attacks of MS [24]. In his day, physicians used the term "relief by flush" to describe the immediate relief by vasodilators of attacks of MS symptoms [25,26], because flushing of the face indicated that the vasodilation was sufficient.

--> JL interjects again: i honestly was taking pictures of my bright red niacin face last time i did the flush, but they were all BAD so no posty hehe

Every kind of acute multiple sclerosis symptom could be relieved in this manner, Brickner reported.

-->well maybe that's going a bit far... obviously niacin is not the only thing involved!
also i never quite realized that ms visual symptoms meant 'spasms' - that makes me want to look up magnesium and optic neuritis. crazy.

So JL- how do you do a niacin flush?

heya terry, ya i hear you i should take my mag for the night too - brb...
okay i'm going to niacin flush again too.

my b-complex was just an average quest product called 'mega b-50 vitamin b-complex with 1mg folic acid'. the first niacin flush was by accident - my then-brand-new bottle of b-50 (back in '06) scared the crap out of me and i called telehealth before i read the small print "may cause harmless and transient flushing and itching due to dilation of blood vessels and release of histamine"

then i read about why the flush was a good thing. i've been starting to use it a bit more hoping to fire some nutrition into my ratty neck and get things sorted out a bit better.

i stopped taking that particular b-complex because there is such a thing as too much folic acid and i found it. but i know what it feels like now (phantom unscratchable itching that drives you bloody mad).

also surely there are b-50 complexes out there that have 50mg straight niacin without such a power pack of folic acid. but it has to be niacin, not niacinamide which is altered to prevent the flushing effect.

or, you can get niacin-only pills. but i think it's better to take in a complex.

start with a b-complex w/ 50mgs niacin and work your way up!

and that's that. it can be freaky but it doesn't last. you might feel it in your chest a bit, and it can turn you red on arms and legs not just face. don't plan it for out-in-public time lol!

I must admit that since starting to take now 7.2g daily of salvia, a vasodilator and anti-platelet activator, my MS has dramatically improved and is now with the addition of another vasodilator, berberine, tinkering on the brink of I don't know what. Please check in on my admittedly rather tedious regimen section to see how I think this vasodilatory treatment is proceeding. It's stuffed full of herbal remedy research abstracts. I'm trying to work my way through Nature's medical cornucopia.

In fact, looking at pubmed on berberine I see that it is quite powerful and does reduce blood pressure amongst other things. I am therefore going to reduce my pill intake to 3pills once daily of berberine (1.8g daily) 3 pills, 3 times daily (6.4g daily) of salvia, scutellaria, rehmannia, somewhat less curcumin and 30mg bioperine for absorption. Even this may be too much and I certainly felt something this morning when I added the berberine to the other herbs. It felt like my blood pressure dropped.

intrepidly exploring natural drugs,

gg

1: Pak J Pharm Sci. 2007 Jan;20(1):83-92.Links
The berberis story: Berberis vulgaris in therapeutics.Arayne MS, Sultana N, Bahadur SS.
Department of Chemistry, University of Karachi, Karachi-75270, Pakistan. arayne@gawab.com

Barberry has played a prominent role in herbal healing for more than 2,500 years. Berberis vulgaris is a common garden bush, native to Europe and the British Isles, naturalized in North America, seems to have history as old as human race. Anthropologists believe in a ritual practice or sacred object, especially by Native Americans that it works as a supernatural power or as preventive or remedy of illness. It is a deciduous shrub having yellow flowers and scarlet colored fruit in the form of berries. Twenty two alkaloids have been reported so far from root, stem leaves and fruit of this plant, which are of medicinal importance. As a herbal remedy it has no match in serving human race since ancient times. It is the most widely used drug in Homeopathic system of medicine for kidney pain and for removal of kidney stones. In this article, we present countless blessings of nature encountered through this herb which are worthy of recording.

PMID: 17337435 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

link

arg, i can't get into medicinal plants on here. i touched on it with oil of oregano but that's about it so far. i already spend enough of my life in here just discussing the various nutrients, without getting too far into plants, let ALONE recipes for that matter, yikes. i'd never leave.

but yes do be careful with any vasodilators for sure. and yes medicinal plants can be quite powerful!

a little side chat with NHE turned up some interesting cautions respecting magnesium - we were discussing the utility of mag sulphate in tetanus and such, and i had read prior how docs need to use caution in IV use, but in private home use you can still overdo mag sulphate (epsom salts), judging from anecdotal report (if you do a magnesium bath, follow the directions!) - i haven't dug into this very far at all yet.

also there is the case of a 7-yr old having had a magnesium sulfate enema and he ended up in emerg with hypermagnesia. another something that could use more looking into at a later time. i can't spend more on this right now!

so, it's pretty hard to overdo it orally, since it just makes a mad rush for the exit when you've taken too much - but it sounds like you can certainly overdo it also via skin, or via in-the-out-door.

JL

Hey. I'm repeating myself (I just posted this elsewhere) but this all sounds similar to 'Hughes Syndrome'...
http://www.mymultiplesclerosis.co.uk/hu ... drome.html
http://www.hughes-syndrome.org/

HarryZ--The author refers to Jonez and histamine.

I obviously missed this post many months ago but caught it today.

In the late 40's and early 50's, Dr. Hinton Jonez used IV histamine with thousands of MS patients at his Tacoma Clinic. About 80% of these patients obtained improved symptoms with their MS.

I think it was 1952 when Dr. Jonez died suddenly from a heart attack and sadly, all his research with histamine came to an abrupt halt. The clinic closed and pretty much all the work on histamine disappeared as well.

In the late 90's, Elaine Delack, the nurse who had MS, was developing Prokarin which is histamine applied with a patch in a controlled manner. She was unaware of the work that Jonez did and only discovered it when she applied for a patent for Prokarin at that time.

Although Prokarin became available in 2000, Elaine was not a doctor or accredited researcher so you can imagine the road blocks she encountered with Prokarin.

The NMSS made sure this medication that helps MS symptoms didn't get too far. What they did and how they did it would just make you shake your head in disgust.

Prokarin is still available although not well known. If you want to read more about it you can go to http://www.edmsllc.com.

Harry

This quote from the initially cited website sums up my opinion well:

The irony of MS research for the past 30 years has been that it assumed one of the most complex possible etiologies-- autoimmunity--without having made the slightest effort to eliminate simpler causes. Frederick Wolfgram 1979

Now, if only the researchers would pick up the work of the 50s!

lyndacarol wrote:This quote from the initially cited website sums up my opinion well:

The irony of MS research for the past 30 years has been that it assumed one of the most complex possible etiologies-- autoimmunity--without having made the slightest effort to eliminate simpler causes. Frederick Wolfgram 1979

Now, if only the researchers would pick up the work of the 50s!

Unfortunately, it isn't likely to happen since histamine's patent ran out about 20 years ago and no drug company is willing to spend any research money on something that won't give them big returns!!

Harry

Same applies for herbs. Oh the folly of men.

HarryZ wrote:Unfortunately, it isn't likely to happen since histamine's patent ran out about 20 years ago and no drug company is willing to spend any research money on something that won't give them big returns!!

Yeah I am a cynic and believe this too. However, I would hope that the greed of one man or woman would make them spend time to "package" it in a way that they can make money. Procarin is an example. Some people believe you can get similar results using the non patent ingredients. http://www.goodshape.net/