Late January 2018 I carelessly collapsed onto a rickety kitchen chair without confirming its solidity and fell on my derrière. According to my Osteopath, I sprained my lower back. In spite of numerous adjustments, I still haven’t fully recovered and the injury has affected my ability to walk.
Apparently the bony structure has lost fluidity, is very rigid, which causes the back muscles to seize up in terrible pain. Recently my Osteopath explained that the injury causes the muscles in the lumbar region to cramp up which triggers cramps the entire length of the spine so that the area of the cervicals (for example) are affected as well. This gives me the impression my entire back including the cervicals is displaced.
At first getting out of bed was an agony of lower back pain. I couldn’t get up immediately until the fluids in the head and spine had resumed their flow. (I felt like one side of my head was heavier than the other and waited for things to balance out.)
My recovery has been very gradual. My back is stiff which hampers my walking. It is painful upon rising in the morning, but for the most part during the day it is not painful. At first at night however, if I lay on my back more than three hours, the lower back screamed in pain.
I just recently began to sleep with a pillow under my knees to raise them enough to relieve pressure on my back. (For various reasons I can’t sleep on my side.) Otherwise I can’t sleep more than 3 hours without triggering muscle cramps which pressure the spine and, I believe damage the nervous system.
What this implies is that cerebro-spinal fluid and blood circulation can be impeded by cramped muscles following a spinal injury. I had assumed an obstruction of cerebrospinal fluid in the spine would be a bony obstruction, but now I think muscle spasms alone can impede free circulation of fluids.
If I sleep too long, my lower back is very painful, the morning my quadricep muscles are weak, I have muscle wrap around my « good » left foot, all of this implying pressure on my spinal cord owing to seizing up of muscles along the spine.
I am not the only MSer who wakes up groggy in the morning with various muscular weaknesses and cramps who gradually feels better as the day goes by, even better if exercise gets the Central Nervous System fluids flowing, until by bedtime one is entirely recovered. Then to bed, more crushed spine and the process repeats itself. It’s the free flow of blood and cerebro-spinal fluid throughout central nervous system which counts.
In a nutshell, I believe as MS Progresses, muscles along the spine alternatively go into spasm and/or weaken so that the body structure is disorganized. This puts increasing pressure on the spine. The brain and spinal cord are damaged as the free flow of central nervous system fluids are restricted/diverted. Since the autonomic nervous system runs through the spine, its functions are increasingly compromised, for example urinary tract and intestinal peristaltic movement.
I believe Primary Progressive MS is caused at the outset by injury to the spine. This injury need not obstruct directly the free flow of Cerebral Spinal Fluid. As muscles cramp all along the structure, that alone can obstruct free flow of CNS fluids leading to injury.
Now that I’ve demonstrated my theory to myself, I need to focus on recovering from the fall which means trying to release the tension in my lower back. Otherwise my walking will suffer as my Quadricep muscles weaken and my good left foot loses function. Just the last few days since I began raising my knees in bed at night I feel much better upon rising in the morning. My head isn’t all plugged up with what seems to be stagnant fluid. This has relieved the morning muscle weakness.
During the day I focus on walking correctly (with a cane) when taking my minimum 600 step walk. I work to bring my right leg directly forward without swinging it out. The foot drop forces me to focus on my balance. It’s quite annoying having to contend with this half dead appendage which threatens to trip me up and makes me look more handicapped than I feel.
I’ve begun doing pliés to strengthen my quadricep .muscles. ; I will ask the Osteopath and Physical therapist to do the necessary to bring flexibilty to my lower back. I’m convinced that once my back is freed from cramped muscles my body will work much better.
My site MS Cure Enigmas is important to keep alive FOR MSERS the theory that MS is a CNS fluid circulation disorder. We can help ourselves if we understand what we are dealing with.
Dr Zamboni apparently believes that the failure of his Brave Dreams trial has invalidated his CCSVI theory that stenosed veins draining the brain are at the origin of MS nerve damage. I would disagree. He was the most recent to launch the theory that MS IS a blood circulation problem AND he proposed a treatment which worked marvelously well for some MSers. However, the causes of the obstructions are more varied and complicated than his original idea. Chiropractor Dr Michael Flanagan theorised that up to 25% of MS cases originate in injury to the spine/head which obstruct the free flow of central nervous system fluids. Dr. Owiesy’s theory that spasms in the middle smooth muscle layer of the veins obstruct free blood circulation offers an additional factor to explain the role of toxicity, infection, and inflammation in MS pathology.
After Dr. Zamboni posted his CCSVI theory on the Internet Dec 2008, news of his « Liberation Therapy » spread like wildfire in the MS community. ThisisMS opened a CCSVI thread and Dr Sclafani answers some questions attracted enormous interest. The high point of participation came March 4, 2011. At last, a plausible theory which promised a real « cure ».
BigPharma and the medical industrial complex went into Panic mode for fear of losing sales of MS drugs, a major cash cow. They worked to deny medical insurance compensation to MSers for angioplasty treatment which effectively killed it. A propaganda campaign was mounted against the very idea of a MS fluid circulation pathology in favour of the auto-immune theory and disease modifying drugs. Development/ Research of the angioplasty procedure for CCSVI has been hampered. The Chinese have just launched a study of CCSVI. It may be that Western MSers will have to look to the Chinese to escape the greedy clutches of European and American Big Pharma.
The Interventional Radiologist crowd who perform angioplasty didn’t help much. There are big egos at work here. Everyone wants to claim a big MS CURE. I believe that poor fluid circulation IS a major factor in MS pathology, but it is more complicated than stenosed veins in need of ballooning to open blood flow. The Brave Dreams trial did concede that a subset of MS patients enjoyed increased blood flow following angioplasty, a fact which merits further study.
My « ms cure » site is the only one that analyses the various factors in Central Nervous System fluid circulation in MS while suggesting potential treatment options. It performs an important public service. There is enough standard treatment information available. This one glimmer of hope should be allowed to slip through.
As an illustration, recently (June 22, 2018 3 :17 am Paris time) a correspondant e mailed me
« Was reading your generously informative site again today.
Did you write somewhere that a head trauma might take 11 years to be diagnosed?
I had a heavy gym equipment fall with too much weight onto a place on my head that still bothers me. Neck, too. 2005.
SPECT scan in 2007 showed probable traumatic brain injury there. I couldn't remember any trauma until recently. »
This time frame corresponds to the upsurge of neurological symptoms 11 years after an injury. I replied that the Chiropractor Dr Damadian, inventor of the upright cinematic FONAR MRI, gave that estimate between injury and manifestation of symptoms. I think before she does anything more (and she has been very pro-acive in seeking solutions to her problems) she should get a FONAR exam. I will also suggest she read Dania’s entries on the ThisisMS.com website ThisisMs.com www.thisisms.com/ under the CCSVI Dr. Sclafani answers some questions thread. Dania stated it was too late for her, but she hoped her experience could save others from the same misfortune. Where else will my correspondant find that suggestion ?
My site continues to be under attack by someone at Google who « disappears» it. However, my « guardian » generally reacts quickly to re-post it second or third on the first « ms cure » page. This past week-end it was « disappeared » again which is bad news because the week-ends bring the most readers. (It hasn't re-surfaced yet.) After studying the first page search posts, I think I know who is doing this which will be the subject of my next blog post.
One can disagree with me, but I insist that the issue of central nervous circulation pathology in MS must be addressed by someone. At present, that’s me as far as the « MS Cure » sites are concerned.
Tags: MS Cure, CCSVI, Dr Zamboni, Dr Sclafani, Dr Damadian, Dr Owiesy, Dr. Michael Flanagan, FONAR MRI, Google, Brave Dreams trial, Central Nervous System, ThisisMS.com,