We have always stated on this page that pwMS who seek angioplasty should know the following:

1. Patients must stay close to home, to work with local doctors.  Patients need follow up care.  Angioplasty is often not a one time event.

2.  Patients who have angioplasty need a very specific blood thinning regimen tailored to them, and this needs to be followed by a doctor who can test INR and PT (coagulation numbers)  Many people have angioplasty and have no idea they have hypercoagulation before being treated....this is a terrible problem.

3.  Patients need to have a team working with them.  A general physician and vascular doctor/IR are essential--if possible, a neurologist is great, because there can be neurological follow-up.  It took my husband's neuro over a year to become interested, and now she is.

This is what I started writing about August 2009 when I began this page.  Please, go back and read the notes from the beginning.   I was writing about Dr. Zamboni's discovery and the need to take it to local universities and doctors.  I was writing about my husband's local experience and how he needed repeat angioplasties and follow-up care.  I had no idea at that time that there would be medical tourism.  I had no idea that patients would be going thousands of miles to seek care, and have no follow-up.   

We are not doctors on this site.  If you or a loved one have received angioplasty and are having problems or worsening, PLEASE consult your doctors....if they cannot help, go to an emergency room or clinic.  Make sure to have coagulation numbers checked.  If there is fever or illness, there could be infection.  Please see doctors.

I had hoped that what we had started in 2008, getting the research to doctors and universities that could help and would follow their local patients, would be the focus of this group.  I had no idea that it would become an area of medical tourism.  This is why Dr. Zamboni asks for patience.  I know this is hard to hear...but it's true.

Joan