alittlecandle

Anyone who knows me well knows that back in 2003 I became ill and started down a path that led doctors and medical experts to determine that I had Multiple Sclerosis or MS. I use had for a reason. Since late 2003 when all my symptoms left my body I have been without symptoms for going on 7 years. I am thankful for that but have always wondered in the back of my mind if someday it would come back. After all, multiple sclerosis has that name because it happen multiple times. Then last winter I had a revelation at the onset of the flu season.

It’s not so long ago that anyone has forgot that before last winter we could not tune into the news and not hear about the swine flu. With all that hype a video surfaced on the internet about a previous swine flu scare in 1976. I watched this video as I recommend you should too. My story will pick up on the other side of the video players.

Once I heard of this woman’s account of Guillain-Barré syndrome I made a connection. Her symptoms while more sever than mine we’re incredibly similar.

I remember it was in late February or early March of 2003 I was at my desk at work on a Thursday afternoon when my feet started to feel numb, like they had the circulation slightly cut off. I took of my shoes and rubbed my feet, I got up and walked around but couldn’t shake the sensation. I went to bed that night sure it would be gone in the morning. I woke up the next day and it was worse. It had even spread its way up into my calf’s. By the time I got to work on the Friday the tingling sensation was up into my thighs. I dealt with it for the Friday and over the weekend but by the time Monday rolled around it was becoming clear it was not going to go away. I left work that Monday morning to go to a clinic and by the time I was through the clinic and to the hospital I felt numbness from my chest down. To make a long story short I underwent a number of tests over the weeks and months to come, which included a spinal tap and an MRI, I was eventually told that I likely have MS. At the height of it all I was partially numb from the chest down to such a degree that I could not feel water hitting my body in the shower. I even had very slight loss of mobility in my hands and fingers.

The revelation I had after seeing this video was that the winter of 2002/2003 was the last time I had a seasonal flu shot. Now I am not a doctor and can not give myself a 100% accurate diagnosis I feel pretty confident that I do not have MS given the research that I have done. I feel even more secure in that given that I am in my 7th year of being symptom free. As a side note I am yet to have the flu in the last seven years as well.

While most of my symptoms were MS like in nature I have done some reading on GBS and learned it fits the bill perfectly too. I have spent a good deal of time wondering why that was not even presented to me as an option while I was going through my tests. I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that GBS is linked to the bodies response to foreign antigens in the body. Wikipedia states that one study suggests that some cases are triggered by the influenza virus, or by an immune reaction to the influenza virus. Considering that the flu shot is given with live influenza in the vaccine I give that possibility a lot of credit. Did I have an episode of GBS? I have not had the opinion of a medical doctor on that front but to me, it seems highly probable.

Not being a doctor I want to be clear, don’t take my advice as gospel. You need to educate yourself and make your own decisions based on good information (which is hard to come by). Last seasons Swine Flu scare came and went with minor incident. Did some people die? Yes. But the death toll cause by Swine Flu (H1N1) still trailed the typical seasonal flu by a large margin. I pulled the following from WikiAnswers:

3 March 2010 — As of 12 February 2010, According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), it is estimated* that since the beginning of the pandemic, the US has had approximately 57 million cases of A-H1N1/09 Pandemic Swine Flu and approximately 11,690 resulting deaths. Based upon this, an estimate of the mortality rate in the US from the pandemic is 0.02%.
In comparison, the CDC and World Health Organization (WHO) have estimated that with seasonal flu, “we see over 30 million cases in the United States. We see 200,000 hospitalizations and, on average, 36,000 deaths.” (During the entire fall and winter flu season.) Based upon this, the average mortality rate of seasonal flu in the US would be 0.12%

Based on those numbers the regular flu claimed the lives of over three times as many people as H1N1 but there wasn’t any major news coverage or panic around those figures. I think it is worth mentioning too that many victims of the flu don’t die by the flu alone. It is usually the flu in combination with some other complicating health factors primarily when the flu and some sort of viral infection occur at the same time.

The vaccine subject can be a very touchy one. Some people are for it and think its a great medical achievement. Others think that they aren’t great and we don’t yet fully understand the long term effects that vaccines will take on people. I say get out there and do some research. I for one put a lot of weight on the first hand accounts of people. I think that we need to get the TV and medical establishment out of the way and start hearing the stories of individuals that have had good and bad experiences through vaccines and weigh the positives and negatives before rolling up our sleeves at the recommendations of the government and TV. For me I can’t shake this feeling that the higher ups are just a little to eager to have us lining up for our annual “safety shots”. Again, I want you to think for yourself and start doing your homework. The new flu season is only a couple months away so get on this now before we are in the heat of the moment with the TV screaming doom at us. It’s your life and your body. I myself am unlikely to ever accept another vaccine, but only the circumstances will tell for sure.