MS PAIN AND ICING DOWN THE SPINAL COLUMN

 I need to start by saying that I am not advocating that anyone do what I did and, in fact, still do. I’m only telling you my story of what I did quite frequently especially early on in my first initial attacks. And yes, it did and still does, help quite a bit if my pain becomes too intense.

     My first major attack was downright brutal. My legs locked up to the point where I was walking like I was standing on stilts. And my feet burned made even worse by the

hundreds of needle like pricks that I felt with every step I took. But the worst pain was in my sciatic nerves running up and down both my right and left legs. And it didn’t take long for this nearly intolerable pain to move up into my lower back making every bend and twist an agonizing experience.

     And it wasn’t long after these first symptoms that my MS moved into my hands causing my fingers to curl up to the point where I could barely get my hand to open. And finally came the flashing in my eyes and the dizzy spells that more than once sent me to my knees on the floor.

     And these were just the physical symptoms. I also had to deal with the fear of being attacked by something that even my doctor was totally perplexed about. Oh, and did I mention that I was between jobs and had absolutely no insurance at the time?

     In the beginning my doctor put me on 800 mg of Ibuprofen every six hours. And I’m sure the fact that did absolutely nothing won’t come as a surprise to any of you who also have multiple sclerosis. And since I didn’t have insurance and couldn’t really afford to see a neurologist right away I was left with only one solution that I felt might bring some relief. I went to a hardware store and purchased several of the blue icy packs that you freeze and put into coolers to keep food and drinks cold when traveling or going camping. 

     As soon as they were frozen I started laying on them with one or two of them positioned along my lower back for literally hours at a time. And thankfully it started to relieve my pain almost immediately. And then after a few days I noticed that both my legs and my hands began to loosen up to the point where I could stand and walk almost normally again and stretch my fingers to their fullest extension.

     I kept this up for weeks as the attack slowly subsided overall. At one point I had my spinal column so cold I could feel my nervous system rattle inside my body. This was a very strange experience because I could feel my nerves buzzing inside my brain.

     Fortunately after my initial attack I have never had one that severe again but I still used ice for years after this whenever I had an exacerbation with intense pain. And every time I did it my pain subsided to a point where it was at least tolerable. And I still do this though not anywhere near as much as I used too.

     The surprising thing about this over all of these years, is that none of my neurologists have ever said not to do this, though they’ve never really said that it was a great idea either. The two things that I will add here is that it’s cheap and it’s drug free which you can’t say about most other MS treatments on the market!

By Bill Walker

 

REQUEST FOR SPECIAL PET STORIES

I’m requesting stories from any and all of you who have ever had a pet die and than return in any way to let you know that they survived death and came back to ease your fears about their crossing. I think I’m going to write a book about pets surviving death as I have had like at least three of my pets return after death to comfort me after their transition.

What I would like for you to do is to first write the experience you had out in long hand and put it down for a day, or a little while, and then type it out and send it to me at the email address below. If and when I write the book I will certainly let everyone know especially if their story made it into the book. This is kind of a nonscientific study that I am undertaking so I would love to hear from you all if you’ve got a story to tell. The reason for having you write it out twice is that usually after you write something once and wait a little bit your mind starts to recall the experience and you often remember more than you did in your first draft. And I want the stories to be as in-depth as they possibly can be.