It has been 13 months since my Wifes last appointment to see the MS Specialist / Neurologist at the MS Clinic, and it's been 8 months since her CCSVI treatment. For todays visit we took along the MRI's taken in Mexico pre-treatment, the Surgeons Report re the blockages and the Clinic's Study of its first 350 patients indicating the preponderence of CCSVI and the apparent positive effects of the treatment on those patients.
The Neuro asked what had happened over the last year and we told him that after our visit in 2010 we had decided to seek the treatment; my wife advised him of the positive beneits she had seen (improved energy, generally feeling better and the improved bladder control allowing her to get a much better nights sleep). He felt that the benefits were just a normal adjustment despite her secondary progressive state and that the improved bladder response was due to the medications which she could now reduce !!
He then checked out her arm and leg strenth, reflexes and then (something he had not done in prior examinations) he got her to do the finger to finger / finger to nose test, thumb to fingers. After he sat back down he stated that she appeared to be doing well. We then discussed her reducing / coming off the Prozac which he felt was a good idea as, in his words, the less drugs the better.
So far, and desiite having the huge envelope holding the the MRI's etc on the table and which I told him we had when we got there, he had not asked a thing about the treatment itself. I then asked him if he felt an up-to-date MRI should be done - "No". I asked wouldn't it be appropriate to do the MRI up-date as a comparison with those taken pre-treatment - "No". I asked wouldn't it be nice to see if there were changes in the lesions sinnce the treatment - "No". (Note the last MRI my wife had done in Canada was in 2002 !!)
I was now becoming somewhat annoyed, and asked this so-called specialist why he wouldn't want to see if there had been any changes in the lesions since treatment as it would maybe suggest if treatment had in fact caused changes / improvement to the lesion count - his response, a single patients results did not prove anything that it would take a great many updates to give any sort of conclusive result.
I then asked why he was so very apparently against CCSVI treatment, he said he was not opposed to it but it needed to be more fully studied. I asked him if he considered the auto-immune theory of MS to be the proper answer to MS - he said yes, so I asked him why he subscribes to that theory when it has never been proven. He responded that he did not like to get involved in medical discussions with lay-persons, so I pressed him to answer if the auto-immune theory had been proven - he finally admitted it had not but that there was a huge amount of research which supported the theory - but I asked had it been proven and how many people had been cured as a result. He was now becoming obviously angry and trying very hard to contain his anger. He went on to talk about the many inconclusive studies re CCSVI, the Swedish and German studies that showed Zamboni's study to be 100% inaccurate - I told him that Zamboni had refuted those studies for their flawed approaches; his response Zamboni is not God.
It was time to terminate our appointment, I thanked him and told him we'd see him next year, altho I have to wonder if he will ever want us back !!! My wife agreed that he was totally dismissive of the treatment she had undergone, how it had improved her quality of life, how he just was not interested.
Why would someone, a Canadian Specialist who really doesn't have to worry about his income - he's employed by a major hospital and there will always be a need for his services - why would he not be more interested in how his so-called patient is doing, how this new treatment might indeed have a positive effect on his patients ? Sure he might want to see more scientific research, more reviewed studies, but knowing those are going to be years away here iin Canada, here's your chance to see up-close and personal how a new treatment works, or doesn't. Why wouldn't you want to take more interest ?
I can only apologise to the next patient he was seeing this morning at Kelowna's MS Clinic, because when we left he was not a happy MS Specialist !!