Multiple Sclerosis

About five years ago, I started experiencing some major changes in my body. I started getting dizzy spells and numbness in my hands and feet. My legs would go weak while walking and I would fall. It would happen about once every 3 or 4 months. Eventually, the episodes increased to once a month. I went to the doctor and was referred to a neurologist. After several tests, he said there was something wrong, but he really couldn't tell me what it was because the tests results were conflicting and really didn't point to anything that would cause the symptoms I was experiencing. Meanwhile, the frequency of my falls increased to 3 or 4 times a month. I started experiencing other new symptoms as well. I started getting pain and swelling in my joints. I was then referred to a rheumatologist who diagnosed me with Fibromyalgia. I was also referred to some of the top internists and neurologists at USC Medical Center. Again after a battery of tests, I received the same results, something is wrong, but we don't know what. In order to return to work, I was required to use a wheelchair whenever I was on company premises. I then developed other problems as well, I developed thyroid problems and was put on thyroid medication. I was also diagnosed with acute sleep apnea and was prescribed a breathing machine to use at night. I then went to Scripts Research Hospital in La Jolla. Again the same results, they too found problems, but nothing that could account for my symptoms. By this time, I was falling once every other week, and had developed tremor spells and I started dropping things. I continued to go to several doctors and regularly went to a chiropractor. Eventually, I had reached the point where I was falling once or twice every day. I was becoming more and more dependant on the wheelchair whenever I had to leave the house. Finally, after four and a half years of test after test, I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis.

I became very fearful of what the future held for me. My whole life I had been involved in athletics, playing college softball and soccer, playing golf and volleyball, coaching high school softball and soccer. Now the doctors were telling me that because of where the disease had progressed so far, that I needed to prepare for the possibility of ending up in a wheelchair, that they may be able to slow the disease down, but they couldn't guarantee that I would get any better. The first thing they wanted to do was put me on medication. Because of everything I had learned about the dangers of the medication used for MS, I was desperate to find anything I could to avoid those treatments.

That is when a friend referred me to Dr. Spurgin. I started treatments in March of 2003. The first three months, my visits were not very consistent, I would go a couple weeks in a row, and then miss a couple weeks. At one point I stopped going for about a month. Since I have been more committed to regular visits, I have achieved incredible results. I no longer have the constant pain in the joints. My tremors have greatly improved, and I have greater muscle control, I am no longer dropping things. I went from 2 - 3 hours of sleep a night to 6-8 hours a night. I no longer have the chronic fatigue that I always felt. I am also off my thyroid medication. The greatest improvement of all though is something not a single MD has been able to do for me; I have gone three months now without a single fall. I can't begin to express how much that means to me. I no longer have to see the worry and the fear in my five year old's eyes when he sees his mother on the ground after yet another fall. I am actually able now to go out on the soccer field and work with him. I am playing golf again, and if I continue to improve, I will be out on the softball field again. All of these results have been without medication!

I can never thank Dr. Spurgin enough for what she has done for me. Her compassion and her heart for complete healing in her patients is something I have never before found in a doctor. She has been an answer to long time prayer. She has given me back my life. When I was given a grim hope for the future, she gave me new light.

I just want to inform other people who may be in the same situation I was in, anyone with chronic illness, that there is an alternative to damaging medications. There is another option that is extremely effective. The treatments are not only painless, but very human, very personal. I cannot think of a better way to regain health.

Thank you again, LM