Six months ago my Wife put her trust in the Clinic of the Heart in Cabo San Lucas to provide treatment for CCSVI - the Doppler scan only showed some narrowing of her jugulars with some reflux and turbulance. The actual venogram on the other hand showed an 80% obstruction in the valve in the left I.J. and a 90% obstruction in the valve in the right I.J. - both were opened with 15 mm balloons and although there remained a 40% and 10% residual obstruction respectively, the flow normalized.
We went for the treatment to slow (possibly stop) progression: in 3 years (2005 to 2008) my Wife had gone from RRMS to SPMS, from the occasional use of a cane to 100% use of a walker, suffered 2 falls which had resulted in 1) badly sprained ankle and 2) a fractured hip. So after 6 months has the treatment worked ?
As far as "progression" concerned, it likely is too early to tell. Symptoms such as fatigue and energy, cog-fog and clarity, bladder control, and in her opinion, Quality of Life are very much improved. She still needs to use her walker as although her balance (standing up) is good, putting weight and the initial movement on the right leg (always the problem) is still difficult and results in the possibility of a fall. The "foot-drop and drag" which used to happen has improved to be sometimes non-existent, so perhaps with exercising the strent / control may well even return to the leg.
Despite the improvements, I am still concerned about restenosis, and there is a lot of reporting on this on various sites. I therefore have not stopped in my research and efforts to get CCSVI treatment recognized especially here in Canada. I continue to write / harrass our politicians, (and on this note I know everyone has their political leanings, but let's not allow our personal feelings to get in the way of the united front we must have in this issue - I personally don't believe any of our 3 political parties give a dam about "our" issue, we just aren't big enough, despite Dr Duncan). I have a personal peeve when I read newspaper articles that talk about "a cure", or suggest the treatment is "controversial"; as far as a cure is concerned, there is so much more research needed, until the medical researchers can pinpoint a cause, how can they come up with a cure ? And "controversial", well that might have been the case a year ago, but it shouldn't be controversial anymore after all the treatments done, after all the recent papers presented.
Just two final thoughts, I saw an ad on television the other night, it was for those strips you stick on your nose at night (Breath-Rite ?), which said ..."don't want blocked airways"... and I'm thinking that's a similar case as CCSVI, yet we can the strips at any pharmacy - makes you think !!!!! Also just finished reading a book - "Breakthrough !, How the Ten Greatest Discoveries in Medicine Saved Milions and Changed Our View of the World", by Jon Queijo. It does not contain anything about CCSVI or Dr Zamboni, but what was so interesting was the way all the discoveries, from the treatment of Cholera, the discovery of germs, through to the research on genetics and DNA, and the various forms of "alternative" medicine and therapies. how all of these things were initially ridiculed, how the researchers / practioners were reviled.
We talk about the "paridigm" shift in thinking that is needed for CCSVI to be recognized in MS, at least right now we have the technology and ability to show how it can be a factor, well just think how it would have been two or three hundred years, without the techniques we have today. And in many cases it took decades before a discovery was recognized, so in the case of CCSVI the fact its only been a couple of years is encouraging.
So yes its been 6 months, a good 6 months, an encouraging 6 months but we will continue to follow this research and we will most certainly continue to support the need for this treatment to be provided in Canada and as part of our Health Services PLans. And I for one will continue to hope that the "R" word doesn't happen !!!!!! Thanks for reading.
Malcolm.