MS and the Legalization of Marijuana

Green Stop 7466 Mount Baker Highway Maple Falls Washington

I am ecstatic that I live in one of the two states, Washington and Colorado, where voters were progressive enough to take on the responsibility of legalizing marijuana. It was a long time in coming and the right thing to do in my opinion. It is truly ridicules to flood our jails because of smoking a weed when alcohol kills thousands of people every year through traffic accidents while heightening the incidence of domestic violence nationwide, and remains legal in every state.

And unlike alcohol, marijuana can boast a number of positive outcomes that go well beyond just getting high. Lately many people have been watching with great interest at a number of new studies using THC and other compounds in marijuana in the treatments of a number of different diseases. It’s been long understood that marijuana has a positive effect for cancer patients who are being treated with Chemotherapy drugs and its ability to help them both eat and ultimately digest food that is otherwise difficult for these individuals during periods of treatment. And lately other studies have shown marijuana’s ability to slow and even stop some cancers ability to replicate and grow after being treated with many of the compounds found in pot. And these studies need to be continued without the fear of government intervention as has always been the case in the past when researchers wanted to do more complex research on how cannabis affects certain disorders like Parkinson’s and epileptic seizures, which, by the way, is showing extremely positive results in both of these disorders in newly released research studies.

In fact, I can personally think of two studies that I would like to see done with regards to Multiple Sclerosis if they aren’t being done already? My experience with marijuana and MS is that cannabis has a very positive effect on all forms of pain reduction with regards to MS and also greatly reduces the amount of daily nerve spasticity that is so commonly experienced by MS patients. And though I personally don’t relish the high that marijuana provides I also must admit that it does at least offer a couple hours of relief from a disease that otherwise is a constant annoyance every second of every minute of every hour of every day three hundred and sixty five days of the year.

I have been asked on a few occasions why I never got a marijuana medical green card to purchase the drug as a medication for my own disease and the answer was always because I felt three or four hundred dollars was an absurd price to pay for something that I only used on a rare occasion. And now with pot being legal in the state of Washington I no longer have to worry about this additional cost to my wellbeing.

So once again, thank you Washington State and Colorado State for being the forward thinking people that you are. And I certainly hope that this experiment in legalization both works and is replicated nationwide as time goes on. It is time for a gentler drug policy in the United States because the war that has been waged on drugs up to this point is just not working and new ideas are needed now so we can continue to move forward!

By Bill Walker

I am currently on disability but would greatly appreciate finding either a writing or research position with regards to either Multiple Sclerosis or the environment where I could supplement my monthly income. If anyone is aware of either a permanent position or a freelance position where I could work from home I would love to hear from you. My contact email address is contained in my resume at the top of this blog page.

Thank you!

MS-A Cold-Zinc-A Difficult Choice

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How do spiders do that? Those two trees are at least ten feet apart.

Recently I woke up with all the tell tale signs of an emerging cold, you know, the scratchy throat, the slightly more then usual MS weakness and tightness in my muscles a little sniff here a little sniff their with a sneeze or two thrown in for good measure. And it’s in these very early moments of an oncoming cold virus where I have to make a very difficult health choice. If I hit a cold hard as soon as I notice it coming on with mega doses of zinc I can almost always knock down both the severity of the cold as well as the duration of having to put up with this pesky little health annoyance by about half as much. And it would seem that the answer would be simple enough to deduce, but it’s not.

For all of the benefits that I get from using zinc to combat a cold I also have to accept a sudden flair in all of my MS symptoms after about the third day of using the zinc. And if I don’t stop completely after the fourth day I risk having a full blown MS attack that could last for days or even weeks. And this is knowledge that I have acquired over almost sixteen years of having both colds and Multiple Sclerosis so I know for a fact that this is how my body reacts to zinc.

And in fact, while were on the subject, this is pretty much the same choice I have to make when deciding whether or not to get a flu shot or not each year. I really don’t know what they put in the flu vaccine, though I’ve heard they use mercury as a preservative, but whatever is in it I seem to always have a reaction that in many cases is even worse then having the flu itself.

And when you consider that recent studies have shown high levels of iron deposits in MS patient’s brain lesions after they have passed away I just have to wonder if heavy metals are something that people who suffer from MS, or perhaps any autoimmune disorder, just can’t tolerate to much of in their systems.

However, these are not the only triggers when it comes to me personally and many of these other vitamins have nothing to do with metal in any way, or at least as far as I know. I cannot tolerate vitamin B12, same thing as above my symptoms go nuts after just a few days of trying to take it, however what’s strange is that, no other B vitamin seems to affect me like this. Vitamin E also seems to adversely affect my MS along with Cod Liver Oil, though Omega 3 fish oils don’t bother me at all.

And one final note here about iodine, I recently read that salt, or sodium, may play a part in triggering Multiple Sclerosis. And I can truly believe this as well, if the salt has iodine added to it which most of the time it does, as at some point years ago I tried taking iodine supplements, for some reason that I can’t remember anymore, and with in two days I stopped as my MS began to rebel violently to the addition of this nutrient in its more concentrated form.

Well that’s some of the things that affect me. I would be very interested in knowing what triggers other people with MS, or any autoimmune disease, have noticed in their lives? Who knows, maybe we can figure this thing out on our own!

By Bill Walker

MS Changes in Weather and Heat Exposer

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Yes! It really does snow in Western Washington.

It’s been quite a few years since I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis and over that period of time I cannot even speculate how many times I have read that exposer to higher temperatures is linked to a worsening of MS symptoms. And of course I don’t really doubt this, everyone’s experiences are different, but I most be the oddball out because it does not seem to be the temperature that bothers me but rather, the temperature combined with the humidity that does me in.

I can go out on any hot day where the humidity is low and not seem bothered at all by the actual temperature. And what is even stranger is that I can take a hot shower, where it is humid, and not feel any worse when I’m finished though to be honest, I don’t take long showers, so that might be the difference here?

On a slightly different note, I have also noticed that I sleep much better during the Winter months when the weather patterns are primarily influenced by low pressure systems instead of high pressure systems during the Summer months. And this also translates into less fatigue as well as a slight decrease in all of my MS symptoms during the Winter but I still don’t think this is correlated to temperature, or at least, not entirely.

Does anyone else see a difference in their MS symptoms during different weather patterns? I’m really curious!

by Bill Walker

MS and Single Payer Obamacare

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Sunset in the Pacific Northwest

Many people have complained about Obamacare and how it adversely affected their current healthcare coverage. It’s unfortunate, in my opinion, the one thing that could have saved a great deal of grief and made the entire system cheaper and fairer for everyone was a single-payer program for all. And yes, I’ve heard about the people who fly to the US from Europe or come from Canada for their operations, but you have to remember that these are the richest, the top one percent, of people who can afford to pay cash for their procedures because they don’t want to wait for their procedure to be scheduled in the future. It’s not that our healthcare system is so much better, it’s because they just don’t feel that they should have to wait if it’s not an emergency procedure. A single-payer healthcare system is fair for everyone!

SINGLE PAYER BEATS WASTE AND FRAUD

Healthcare in America is a $2.6 trillion dollar a year industry. Of that, $750 billion is estimated to be spent on procedures, medicine, and equipment that was unnecessary to begin with and only done to avoid law suits or increase the bottom line of a greed based medical and insurance industry. And another $60 billion is lost thru Medicare and Medicaid annually because of fraud nationally.

Until the Affordable Care Act, the average administrative cost to provide you with insurance was 37 percent of your personal or employer based insurance policy. Under the new law that drops to 20 percent. But in the cases of Medicare and Medicaid they cost only three percent for the government to administer your coverage.

O.K., let’s do the math: 37 percent of $2.6 trillion dollars is roughly $957 billion for administrative costs and profit for insurance companies and their investors otherwise known as Wall Street. At 20 percent, the amount is roughly $520 billion dollars for the same administrative bottom lines. Now if we had a single-payer system that cost only 3 percent for administrative costs, then cost would drop to roughly 72 billion dollars.

The Obama Administration currently has budgeted $250 million dollars a year to reign in Medicare and Medicaid fraud. My question, why not a billion dollars in an effort to reduce $60 billion dollars a year in fraud, down to maybe $5 billion or more?

Even without reducing the unnecessary costs mentioned above, that leaves almost a trillion dollars to cover all of the Americans who don’t have insurance under the old way of doing things. It saves money, and covers more people, so why not single-payer coverage?

Think about it and feel free to comment. As Pat Benatar once sang, “Hit me with your best shot!”

MS Michael Jackson & Propofol as a Treatment

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Wall Mural in Blaine Washington

If Propofol sounds vaguely familiar to you it’s because it is the same drug that Michael Jackson overdosed on while using it as a sleeping aid. But it’s also the best damn MS treatment I’ve ever received since my diagnosis sixteen years ago bar none. If you’re not familiar with Propofol it’s a fairly new anesthesia medication that is administered via intravenous infusion just before surgery. And if used correctly it is a much safer drug that also has far fewer side effects, then many other drugs such as Ether or Sodium Pentathol that were used previously for the same purpose. In my case it was used for both a Colonoscopy many years ago and more recently for a Hernia operation.

In both cases where Propofol was used I can not stress enough at how much difference it made in almost all of my MS symptoms. The first thing I noticed upon waking up even though I had discomfort caused by each procedure was a total lack of pain in my lower back as well as no pain in either of my Sciatic Nerves running down my right and left leg’s. The second was a noticeable decrease in the amount of numbness in both my hands and feet. And the third was very little spasticity in my legs after each of these procedures. And this reduction of pain, numbness, and spasticity lasted more than twenty four hours after my discharge from the hospital.

Of course I have no idea how Propofol works or in fact what it really does to block your awareness while undergoing surgery but I would love having something like it as a sleep aid at night in a pill form specifically to treat Multiple Sclerosis and all of its other symptoms. I don’t know if Propofol is an anti inflammatory or not but it sure seemed much better at blocking my pain and numbness then anything else I’ve ever tried.

The benefits as far as I’m concerned were so impressive that I would certainly encourage researchers doing MS studies to spend some time looking into Propofol and any other drugs that work in the same manner as possible future treatments. Yes, it was that good at reducing my discomfort, period. It was as close to feeling like I didn’t have MS as I have felt since before my first major attack!

By Bill Walker

MS and Vitamin D Revisited

MS Depression Robin William’s Tribute

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Robin William’s winning Academy Award

What an incredibly sad tragedy it was to lose one of America’s funniest and all time greatest comic geniuses Robin William’s to suicide brought on by a debilitating case of depression. If one good thing could come out of this horrible event it would be a moment of awakening of America’s collective compassion, as well as acceptance, of the serious nature our mental health problems really are in this country. We can no longer ignore and try and bury this growing issue in the deepest recesses of our health care system as if it doesn’t pertain to every single individual nationwide, or even worldwide, for that matter. It is past time that we finally relegate mental health with equal concern to all other considerations in our health care system.

As a person who suffers from MS I know this all to well as I have spent many of my working years in the mental health field as both a group home counselor and as a unit coordinator in a mental health treatment facility. But there is even a bigger reason for my concern and interest in the field of mental health. As a child, I was also diagnosed with mild to moderate depression. And in a strange way my, on again off again, depressive state is much like the multiple sclerosis I was diagnosed with sixteen years ago in that it can be triggered into an active dark state of being only to recede just as quickly back to a place of relative remission. And also just like MS, depression is a silent and invisible intruder, that stalks its prey with little if any noticeable changes to anyone outside of the person who is experiencing its extreme emotional and physical wrath.

In my case, I have been extremely fortunate to never have been so consumed by my inner demons as to consider suicide a viable alternative, but that doesn’t mean that from time to time I must find the inner strength to face these forces of emotional mental destruction head on. And my deepest battle with these personal enemies came simultaneously, which one would expect I think, with my diagnoses of multiple sclerosis. It rocked my mental world in the worst kind of way right to its core. At that time I couldn’t think of anything any worse that could have ever happened to me. Which of course, isn’t true. But it did take me two plus years of being on the antidepressant Zoloft along with strong family and friend support before again the Sun finally rose in my world.

I am very happy to report now that I have been reasonably safe and sane for going on nearly ten years, but I am always aware that it takes vigilance and a positive outlook on all aspects of my life to remain ahead of the many pitfalls that can occur without warning to stay one step ahead of depression. And one of the biggest things that I have come to realize in my fifty seven years of life is that we all, without exception, can fall victim to our own mental instabilities and emotional environmental trauma’s. And just like the flu, anyone at anytime can have a mental health crises. And it’s nothing to ever be ashamed of because it’s just one more of our shared human frailties!

RIP Robin, we’ll miss the laughter that you brought into all of our lives!

By Bill Walker

MS and Eye Flashing Shadow Snake

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Eye of the Shadow Snake!

One morning about three weeks ago I wasn’t terribly surprised when I woke up to the flashing strobe light sensation that often accompanies one of my MS attacks when I first got out of bed. I had known for a couple of months that I was experiencing my somewhat annual flare up so it didn’t strike me as being any big deal as that is normal for me. The only thing that was different on this occasion was that the flashing seemed confined to just my right eye when usually it’s in both eyes. However, I have become used to the fact that my attacks are never exactly the same from year to year so I paid very little attention to that fact.

It wasn’t until the next night when I was driving to a local baseball game that the real strangeness taking place in my right eye was to get my total undivided attention. As I was driving the flashing started to give way to this grid of dark spots that covered part of my vision which was bizarre, in that, I have never had that as one my symptoms during an MS episode before. I felt like if I had a pencil I could have easily played that kids game of connect the dots and that’s exactly what this grid looked like as I gazed threw it and onto the rest of the world which is also a bit distracting when your watching cars coming at you at fifty to sixty miles an hour. But the strangest and literally the scariest symptom was, as yet, to come.

Upon reaching the game what I can only describe as a snake or worm like dark shadow began making figure eights throughout my line of vision, but again, just in my right eye, which at the time, I was thankful for because one of my biggest fears about MS is eventually going blind. The thought of losing my eyesight, to say the least, terrifies me when ever I have MS related eye problems. The worm continued its seemingly prearranged journey through most of the rest of the baseball game until about the eighth inning when it began to fade into the twilight of the oncoming darkness beyond the lights of the stadium. And thankfully it was completely gone by the time I started the long drive back home, but most certainly, not forgotten.

It just so happened that I had a doctors appointment with my regular family doctor the next day and after describing my previous day’s experience my doctor scheduled an emergency appointment with my Optometrist the very next day after that. When I woke up that next morning, and as I prepared to leave for my appointment, I was greeted by what seemed like a hundred floaters moving around my field of vision in my right eye, which was kind of like watching a meteor shower in my head.

Fortunately, it did not take long for my Optometrist to figure out what was happening, and what was happening had absolutely nothing to do with Multiple Sclerosis at all. He explained that as we get older there are tiny fibers in our eyes that attach the gel like substance inside of the eye to the Retina and sometimes these fibers break causing all of the symptoms that I had previously described. He referred to it as a Vitreous Detachment which I quite honestly had never heard of before. He went on to explain that this can only happen one time in each eye and that people who had this happen in one eye were far more susceptible to having this happen again in the other eye at some later date.

As my fear of losing my sight began to abate he told me that it would probably be about thirty days for the floaters to finally disappear altogether, which seems to be just about right as it’s been about that long, and I’m not noticing to many of these any more. And let me add this, this was not a great experience to have, and I’m certainly not looking forward to going through this again if it does happen, but at least I’ll now what’s happening the next time, the terrifying shadow snake comes to call!

By: Bill Walker

MS Obamacare: My Story

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Foothills Of Washington State

For many people The Affordable Care Act, otherwise known As Obamacare, has been nothing more then big government attempting to take control of their lives, for myself on the other hand, it’s been nothing less then a Godsend.

After losing my job in 2010 to the recession, I discovered that the job market was not going to be kind for someone with my limitations due to a Multiple Sclerosis disability. As the weeks, months, and eventually years wore on the task of finding new employment drained me to the point of depression and despair. Of course, along with losing my job, I also lost my healthcare plan which only added to my frustration and deepening depression.

As my blood pressure began to spike, my prescription to control it ran out, I was left with only one other option for my future care and my sanity. With my stress levels careening out of control I had no other option but to apply for Social Security Disability. However, much to my surprise, even after being found legally disabled I also found out that does not automatically mean that you have health care coverage.

I was amazed to find that I had somehow fallen into a black hole where I made to much money from disability to qualify for Medicaid coverage but not enough to be able to afford any other health care coverage.

All of that changed in January of 2014 when The Affordable Care Act was fully implemented. The new rules did make me eligible for Medicaid. I was finally able to afford to see a Doctor and get my blood pressure medication restarted along with having an operation for a Hernia that had been painfully getting worse for months on end.

Obamacare worked for me, please give it a chance!

MS And A Patient Bill of Rights

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Multiple Sclerosis And Beyond

Bill Walker: msandbeyond@gmail.com