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“‘Rod, I’m back.’ These were the first words that Janice Warman spoke to her husband Rod when waking after receiving liberation treatment, a new procedure that has the multiple sclerosis (MS) community buzzing. After 25 years caught in a downward spiral of worsening health and quality of life, something was different, and for the better.”
Read the full story about Janice’s MS liberation here on PeakOnline:
http://www.prpeak.com/articles/2010/11/24/news/doc4cec709d71bfc407881760.txt
“Rod, I’m back.” These were the first words that Janice Warman spoke to her husband Rod when waking after receiving liberation treatment, a new procedure that has the multiple sclerosis (MS) community buzzing. After 25 years caught in a downward spiral of worsening health and quality of life, something was different, and for the better.
The improvements in Janice’s condition were noticeable the day after treatment. Janice could close her mouth. Her vision was clearer. She could hear. She could talk coherently, sometimes in full sentences, and from deep in her vocal chords. She could even move her left arm, which was one of the first things to go and has hung limp for 25 years.
In the four weeks that have passed since her surgery Janice’s condition has steadily improved. Rod estimates her symptoms have regressed about five years. A heavy regime of massage and physiotherapy is helping her recuperate, gradually bringing back to life the body that seemed so close to death. She is no longer taking 150 pills she took per month either, which included antidepressants. She can now wave that left arm.
“I’m just on a high,” said Rod. “This is like the most incredible thing after 25 years.”
The first symptoms of Janice’s MS started with a little numbness in her face in 1985. Two days later she was on her way to hospital in Vancouver and by the time she was released her condition had deteriorated to a point that she was unable to walk. From then on MS attacks came and abated, her ability to walk and function fluctuating with them.
Over the two-and-a-half decades following Janice’s initial attack visits to doctors and neurologists in Vancouver, on Vancouver Island and at home in Powell River took up much of the family’s time, with little of it making any difference. Rod remembers that at the time of Janice’s diagnosis her doctor told them that MS wasn’t a death sentence but a life sentence.
While on the Internet one day Janice and Rod’s son, Bob, found an article about astounding new developments in the treatment of MS.
He found was information on a doctor from Ferrara, Italy who is now a household name for people with MS. Dr. Paolo Zamboni, whose wife has MS, discovered that a common condition among those with the disease is the pinching or restricted flow of blood in veins leading to the brain. He coined the condition chronic cerebro-spinal venous insufficiency (CCSVI) and developed a balloon angioplasty surgery for treatment.
The idea is that without normal flow, blood can remain trapped in the brain and leave iron deposits that ultimately result in the lesions that cause MS. By opening up the blocked or pinched veins through surgery and restoring normal blood flow, Zamboni found that the symptoms of MS were greatly relieved and patients showed incredible improvement.
Zamboni’s research has brought with it a passionate debate among interested parties. Excitement and enthusiasm on the part of those with the disease, including 55,000 to 75,000 Canadians, has been matched by caution and skepticism from many doctors and researchers. Research in North America has been limited and a lack of analysis means that the procedure is still currently unavailable in Canada.
This summer the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society in the United States committed $2.4 million to support research starting July 1, 2010. Full pan-Canadian clinical trials are not in development, as the federal government, with advice from Canadian Institutes of Health Research, has said it will wait until the results from initial studies are available before going further, a process which could take years.
This is why the Warmans decided to travel to Mexico for treatment. There are private hospitals in parts of Europe, India and other countries that offer the surgery, but waiting lists are often long due to the popularity of the procedure. Janice was able to go to Vancouver for an ultrasound of her neck which revealed, just as Zamboni’s research hypothesized, compromised veins leading into her brain.
A Canadian man died in Costa Rica after undergoing the surgery. Mahir Mostic from Ontario died from blood clots that formed in a stent that had been placed in a vein in his neck. The difference between Mostic’s surgery and regular CCSVI surgeries, such as the one Janice underwent, is the use of a stent, which is a metal tube. In the surgery developed by Zamboni balloons are used, just like in a regular angioplasty. Complications can arise when using stents and Zamboni discourages their use.
The Warmans are frustrated by the apparent reluctance of the government to support research into the treatment.
For them it’s simple: Janice had the procedure and now she’s in better health than she has been for years and getting better every day.
As for Janice, her goal has always been to walk again and with the feeling coming back in her legs and nearly daily progress this dream is now within reach.