Varicose Vein Oedema Inclined Bed Therapy Study Alternative to Surgery

OldDragon
28/01/2009 01:36:20 »

Showed my legs - the oedema and the veins prone to phelbitis - to my doctor yesterday. He's well impressed. wink

Not doing so good in other areas and have to see an orthopaedic consultant because of problems with my left shoulder and arm that seem to be related to the surgery to remove the lymph nodes. Also having ongoing problems relating to the effect of the chemo on my GI tract. That's aggravating the infernal piles... always said those were my worst VVs, Andrew!

Thank you for your post. Great to get some feedback from a doctor for a change too.
The surgery was inevitably going to cause some problems with aches and pains and chemo’s certainly is not going to help your digestion. Perhaps once your digestive system has chance to recover the piles may have a decent chance of improving too. But yes you did say haemorrhoids was an ongoing problem for you, and it is disappointing that these have not yet began to settle.

On a positive note, we may have another lady joining our study who has varicose veins and has hopefully taken some photographs for us. She has already mentioned that after 1 night on IBT she noticed her veins were less inflated than the previous day.

Andrew

2008 Dec;18(6):318-24. Epub 2008 Oct 15.
Head-up sleeping improves orthostatic tolerance in patients with syncope.
Cooper VL, Hainsworth R.
Cardiorespiratory Unit, St James's University Hospital, Leeds, UK.
OBJECTIVES: This study was designed to examine the effect of head-up sleeping as a treatment for vasovagal syncope in otherwise healthy patients. Treatment for syncope is difficult. Pharmacological treatments have potential side effects and, although other non-pharmacological treatments such as salt and fluid loading often help, in some cases they may be ineffective or unsuitable. Head-up sleeping may provide an alternative treatment. METHODS: Twelve patients had a diagnosis of vasovagal syncope based both on the history and on early pre-syncope during a test of head-up tilting and graded lower body suction. They then underwent a period of 3-4 months of sleeping with the head-end of their bed raised by 10 degrees , after which orthostatic tolerance (time to pre-syncope during tilt test) was reassessed. RESULTS: Eleven patients (92%) showed a significant improvement in orthostatic tolerance (time to pre-syncope increased by 2 minutes or more). Plasma volume was assessed in eight patients and was found to show a significant increase (P < 0.05, Wilcoxon signed-rank test). There was no significant change in either resting or tilted heart rate or blood pressure after head-up sleeping. INTERPRETATION: Head-up sleeping is a simple, non-pharmacological treatment which is effective in the majority of patients. However, it may not be tolerated by patients or bed-partners long term and whether the effects continue after cessation of treatment remains to be determined

BenV
18/02/2009 10:26:12 »

How do you feel about that study Andrew? Obviously it's good news, but...

It's clearly an indication that someone is looking into inclined beds, despite your earlier claims of it being blocked by the medical community, in fact, there are a number of reports in the same journal on similar ideas.

15 years Ben. Why has it taken so long?

I am delighted with this paper. Though I BT had already proved the point of improved orthostatic intolerance with people who have neurological conditions, including multiple sclerosis and spinal cord injury.

This paper is the first to my knowledge using prolonged inclined bed rest as a model for a study.

I am very excited to say the least. This will indeed open the floodgates for more studies to test the other parameters that have been unlocked by years of independent research. Now we need a study for multiple sclerosis and IBT, then another for spinal cord injury and IBT, and another for Parkinson’s disease and IBT, and another for cerebral palsy and IBT and not forgetting Varicose Veins, Oedema and IBT.

These are simple low cost studies that will earn many students Phd’s But more importantly will improve the lives of people with these conditions.

A great deal more has been happening on the Inclined Bed Therapy Front.

It was blocked Ben. All I needed was a bigger plunger!

alun006

Hi Andrew

I have been doing i.b.t for approx 8 month now.

I have benefitted as you can see on the photos i have submitted, however it has took me quiet a while to get used to new formed muscle mass i have been able to gain on this therapy.

For many years, I have never experienced being able to use my muscles on my bottom half and noticed with in weeks of doing i.b.t my legs muscles looking different and i was able to move them as i had not been able to before.

I had not increased my daily exercise and was finding it hard to understand the reason for such a change.

With my knee pain improvement, i was able to look at increasing my exercise with ease. But with the change in the way my muscles were working came frustration as i started to pull muscles up that i didn't relise that i could. This has taken a while to get used to, and would sometimes give me pain until i relised i was actually doing this myself. shocked

The therapy is giving me great benefits, and i thankyou for sharing your knowledge with the world.

Thankyou
alun006

This is a very important observation and one that has been reported by many people using Inclined Bed Therapy.

Your ability to connect with and move muscles you could not control prior to IBT is something my wife and I noticed. Especially the abillity to tense these muscles to the point where they hurt as you have mentioned was fascinating for us too.

But more to the point, where muscular atrophy has taken place due to neurological problems, the muscles respond and become stronger without the exercise one would normally attribute to muscle building. This was noticed on John and Julian, both who sustained complete spinal cord injury, yet their muscles were observed to firm up along with many other improvements from IBT.

But non more so than the 12 year old girl with cerebralpalsy who had not walked since birth and has never developed strong muscles in her legs until her bed was tilted. Her mother called me to say the bed was being placed horizontal after she had walked. I was astonished that she could want to do this after what she and her family had observed with their daughter. When I asked why, she said that her daughters leg and arm muscles were looking far too masculine. Anyway, they did put her bed down but fortunately only for a week or so because the girl was quickly reverting back to her pre IBT condition.

I have not heard from the parents or the girl for many years but will try to make contact and get some more feedback from them.

Great post Alun thank you for all your help. It's a pitty more people reading this will not provide us with a window into their own observations using IBT for varicose veins and Oedema.

03/03/2009 10:04:48 »

Compression stockings find used by astronauts to help prevent varicose veins that prolonged exposure to microgravity causes.

Ironically flat bedrest, the very thing we are avoiding using IBT has also been used as a model for inducing the same harmful effects that micro gravity
causes in the body of healthy astronauts.

Collection: Powerhouse Museum
97/3/3 Compression gaiters, elasticised nylon/metal, worn by Vladimir Titov, USSR, 1988
Description
Compression gaiters, elasticised nylon/metal, worn by Vladimir Titov, USSR, 1983.
A pair of orange elasticised nylon compression gaiters, used to alleviate problems with varicose veins, to which cosmonauts are susceptible as a result of prolonged periods of weightlesness. Each compression gaiter is made of elasticised orange nylon, with a side metal zipper running 3/4 the length of the gaiter. There are adjustable laces (white in one and grey in the other) to improve fit and decrease or increase pressure on the leg. Tapered to fit the shape of the leg, being narrower at the ankle and broadening up the calf. Stretch-stitching around the laces and zips in navy coloured thread.
Production notes
The actual designer is unknown, but it was presumably a doctor or medical technician at one of the medical research facilities associated with the Soviet space program, such as the Institute for Bio-Medical Problems. The gaiters were designed to assist in the alleviation of a specific medical problem, the development of varicose veins in the legs during prolonged periods of weightlessness. Their elastic nature puts pressure on the legs, simulating the effects of gravity and thus preventing swelling of the leg veins. The adjustable lacings allow the gaiters to be 'customised' for the best fit and also provide the capability to vary the pressure on the leg as required.

alun006
06/03/2009 12:51:39 »

Hi Andrew

Another observation,i have noticed has been a difference in the way the veins feel.

Example, i have been treating a small area of ringworm on the top of my calf vein. When i first started treating it, i always felt that when i rubbed the cream in the vein it would feel tender after i had pressed on it.

Now, when i go to do the same thing. I can press on the same area with the same pressure and it is not tender as it was before.

Why would this be happening?
Is it because the vein is strenthening?

alun

Interesting observation.
Varicose veins become less likely to stretch over time using IBT. This is what they remain flat for longer periods as the months of avoiding flat bed rest pass. Unlike a pre-stretched balloon, something you are an expert with The vein is living tissue so just like when a ligament or tendon is overstretched, resting can enable these to recover their former state. This must also apply to a living vein. The longer it remains flat the longer it will stay flat.

This must be a result of as you say a strengthening of the cellular structure of the vein.

Pressing on a swollen vein would force the extra blood back under pressure. Fluids are relatively incompressible so the pressure you apply in one place will have to increase the pressure in another place. In your case it would be pressing on nerves.

When the blood is no longer filling a swollen vein there is less pressure transferred to the nerves when you press the same area.

alun006
31/03/2009 21:33:30 »

Hi Andrew

My youngest child, made a observation tonight.

I was standing in the kitchen, when my son turned to me and said " I can not see the purple vein that you used to have on the back of your leg, it seems to be getting smaller and less bulging".

What more can you say, but to listen to the honest observation of a 10 year old child.

Thankyou

Andrew K Fletcher
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01/04/2009 11:27:40 »

Alun, thanks for this post. It's a pity that the doctors reading this thread do not have the observational skills that your son has and more to the point, the decency to admit what we have shown here on this science forum to be a scientific repeatable truth.

One would have expected to see people crawling all over these threads and asking questions, yet how many have chosen to ignore these facts?

What should have happened, is that our hospitals and universities should be investigating the possibilities of this research and realise that this simple paradigm has the potential to greatly reduce the NHS outgoings.

The NHS and the private Health Care Industry could use the money spent on unnecessary vascular surgery to the tune of 600 million pounds every year and a further 600 million pounds on complications arising from ulceration and infection, not to mention that most of the surgery for varicose veins is destined to be repeated time and time again with more pain and more risk of complications and infections, when simply tilting the bed not only reduces the swelling an oedema but over time has been shown to strengthen the former varicose veins.

But let’s remember, all we have done here is avoided a flat bed to resolve these problems. And that a flat bed is the basis for our health care system! So does this not tell us anything about the causes of oedema and varicose veins? Yes it does!

It tells us that the flat bed model on which our health service relies upon might not be the safe haven for recovery it is purported to be.

It tells us also that the literature on which our health service is founded is deeply flawed. For example, it is currently believed that sleeping on an incline will have the opposite affect on the varicose veins and oedema! Yet as we have seen on this thread it clearly does not!

It’s about time Inclined Bed Therapy is put into practice for many medical conditions.

Recently a paper has been published by Professor Zamboni and Associates relating to chronic venous insufficiency in the cerebral and jugular veins of 100% of patients with multiple sclerosis and no patients have this problem in the control group. Or simplified, Chronic venous insufficiencies are internal swollen / kinked / twisted / varicose veins, and his paper clearly shows this problem by providing x ray plates.

Zamboni stands on the shoulders of giants and the shoulder he stands on are those of Doctor Franz Schelling from Austria, who began shouting that MS was a circulatory problem rather than a neurological one a long time ago and for his brave stance in defence of what now is proved to be a truth, he almost lost his licence to practice for trying to help people to see a venous anomaly in MS patients. Schelling did not have the technology at the time he first brought this to our attention. Now thanks to huge advances in Doppler technology we have an opportunity to see this circulation problem clearly. Back flow and pressure fluctuations in the bloodstream are thought to be a major contributing factor in the dame to myelin and lesions in the spine and brain of people with ms.

Which brings me back to IBT.

Initially varicose veins and oedema improvements along with a general feeling of well-being and increases in energy and strength were the first indicators when beds were initially tilted. The improvements in varicose veins meant that the pressure inside the veins had been reduced and that oedema was flowing from the skin back into the venous return to the heart, down the arteries and out through the bladder via the filtration from the kidneys. The opposite to what must have been taking place to cause varicose veins and oedema.

Had it not been for my own mother reporting some improvements in what appeared to be a neurological problem resulting in the loss of movement to her foot and ankle and the loss of sensation in the same leg, it may have taken me longer to realise the full implications and possibilities for IBT.

When my mother called me to let me know she had improvements in varicose veins and oedema and a return of function in her foot, ankle and toes, followed weeks later by recovery in sensitivity in the same leg. I realised that the nervous system was benefiting from the same remarkable improvements in circulation and that gravity was indeed a vital component in maintaining our circulation. Being a lateral thinker it is difficult to remain focused on one specific problem and it was not long before I was searching for a neurological condition to test my hypothesis that a density flow and return system much the same as a pump free domestic hot water system driven not so much by heat but by evaporation and the resulting solute concentration was indeed playing a vital roll by releasing pulses of salts into the arteries so that they could flow down to an exit point and in doing so provide a boost to the circulation.

The late Professor H. T. Hammel. Who was a brilliant scientist and who had a fascination for how trees raise water to their leaves, was intrigued by this and added he had observed pulsatile flow arriving at the kidneys and had an interest in how dissolved colloids alter the pressure inside the vessels, and had published some papers attacking the literatures understanding of osmosis stating it was COMPLETELY WRONG!

Dean Falk and Michel Cabanac, both working on circulation in the brain, Falks paper is titled braindance, and her interest in is in the evolution of the location of holes in human skulls and how standing upright has moved their locations to the top of the skull instead of at the back of the skull as is the case with primates. Cabanac who I have mentioned before used a Doppler to show blood flow reversing back through the brain due to hyperthermia from exercise, yet no valves are in place to account for this change in blood flow direction. Yet blood flow was shown to be able to alter it’s direction against the normal pressure of the heart. I put it to Michel that a density change must be taking place due to the huge increases in evaporation from the exercise regimen. And that this would give us an explanation for how this blood flow can reverse under heat stress. He has asked me to write a letter in defence of his paper.

Many people with ms have experienced huge improvements in symptoms from tilting their beds. Someone on this forum stated that these two conditions were unrelated. It now turns out that they are both closely related and that ms is more than likely to be due to a circulation problem.
Ironically my first paper on ms was titled MS is not a disease! The paper went on to explain that keeping the circulation flowing by avoiding postural interference, namely flat bed rest and poor sitting posture we could address the mechanical problems and provide some long term benefits for those who have ms.

11 years of IBT for a lady in the US has provided her with 11 years of ms symptom free. She has only experienced a few episodes of optic neuritis in 11 years! She is not alone, there are more people who are experiencing these remarkable improvements.

How common is venous insufficiency in people with ms?
www.medhelp.org/forums/neuro/archive/4277.htm

04/04/2009 10:07:13 »


From Oldbiker1.



...who no longer has a problem with varicose veins and night time urination frequency, which was 3-4 times a night and now is 0-1 times a night and quite normal for most people.

A troublesome night time cough has also completely resolved since he tilted his bed.

This is what Oldbiker1 has said in emails

Follow up emails from Oldbiker1.
03 April 2009
I was telling a lady about it this afternoon -- she never heard of it, of course, and was quite interested. She said she would look up "inclined bed therapy" on Google ... so, little by little -- people will discover this very important "cure" for what ails you...!

I'm going to check back with her next week to see what happened. I think follow-up is important (which I haven't been doing)... going to start writing down these peoples names and phone numbers... then call back for their reports.


02 April 2009
Hi Andrew -- just want to keep in touch. I promote IBT whenever I see an "opening" -- like today at a coffee shop .. these older people were talking about all their health problems, so I drew a picture of a bed at the five degree angle and gave it to them along with a sales pitch. They were interested and said they would try it.

I haven't had the time to follow through on that "sleep study" I was going to do -- but, my cousin (the MD) is interested in the concept and said he would help me with that project whenever I get to it. I'm still promoting this cure whenever I can.

Was kind of fun to see my name in print: www.earthclinic.com/Remedies/incline-bed-therapy.html . I'm still sleeping like a log -- in fact, I quite often sleep straight through -- don't even get up once for the bathroom (compared to 3-4 times a night before IBT). Also, don't cough at night and varicose veins are gone now ... sorry I didn't take pictures last summer. but, it works. I guess my skin is improving -- people tell me that I look "good" --- maybe that's because of the exercise? But, I'm sure it's a benefit of the sleeping position.

So, if we end up there this fall, I'll have plenty of time to get to Devon and meet with you to discuss the many benefits of IBT. Also, I would take that time to write some kind of a promotional booklet -- will have time to assemble all the data and put it together in a publication... this concept needs a lot of exposure -- 99.9% of the people out there don't know about it ... there's a free cure sitting there waiting to be used ... if they only knew...!

15 January 2009

Hi Andrew - I haven't been promoting the bed position lately, except if the subject comes up in conversation.

I'm at 6" high now -- will stay there... wife doesn't like it any higher (I tried a little higher). Continue to sleep well -- I get up once (instead of 2-4 times) after about six hours. I made another change that seems to have a benefit to the quality of sleep -- have the top of my head pointing south (Indian Vastu teaching). Now I sleep like a rock -- don't wake up at all until time for the toilet. And I'm sure there are other beneficial things going on.

got to keep going here...


Progress Sep 26, 2008

Hi Andrew,

Just wanted to give you an update. I'm in Ellicott City, Maryland this week visiting with my daughter and family. Her husband is an MD working in Baltimore -- he has a teaching position... working with the new doctors.

My daughter has problems with acid reflux, so I managed to convince the doc that we should raise the bed ... so I raised the head by 3 inches yesterday -- that's a start. Over time he will experience the benefit and I'm hoping will slowing introduce this concept wherever he can. On my next trip I'm going to take it up to six inches (assuming he's OK with it).

My daughter from London is also visiting and her husband was here for a week. I put her bed at three inches and her husband's snoring volume subsided considerably while he was here (in California last week).

I'm continuing to enjoy the benefits -- no coughing at night and better quality sleep. I also noticed something unusual... my distance vision is improving slightly (without glasses). It's not perfect, but I see better without the glasses than with them.

More photographs from Alun showing large varicose vein on his calf muscle has returned to normal appearance and no longer causes discomfort and pain.

9 months of avoiding a flat bed is all that was required to resolve the internal pressure problem that caused the veins to bulge. Surgery does not address the underlying causes of varicose veins, is expensive, risky and destined to require further surgery as other veins take the extra blood volume that is diverted when surgery closes a varicose vein.