I started writing the Rubber Chicken Chronicles because of my frustration with a conversation about CCSVI that I had with my wife’s neurologist.
There are only about 350 neurologists in Australia and the ones we’ve met are all full-time scientists. As a (well-read, scientifically literate) lay person I had no hope trying to convince her that there was any evidence of the benefits of CCSVI treatment - even though I saw these benefits with my own eyes.
This is because, as a scientist, she had all her answers pre-canned. I believe in the scientific method, but I don’t practise it. So I got very frustrated that my own thoughts weren’t as organised as hers were, and that I wasn’t able to refute her in her own language. I felt that I needed to find a way to make my ideas and experiences more concrete - and therefore more defensible. And this is the fruit of that search.
The articles posted here represent, at the time of writing, my feelings about aspects of CCSVI which I haven’t seen written elsewhere. I have no reservation in saying that CCSVI is an effective treatment for some of the symptoms of MS - I’ve seen the treatment work on my wife, I held her hand as she went into surgery, and I saw the transformation of her personality over the following couple of days. The effect of treatment is real, or at least it was for us.
But there are some really big questions. Does CCSVI cause MS? Will fixing CCSVI stop the progression of disease? Will CCSVI treatment give MS patients a longer or better life? Will MS symptoms improve after CCSVI treatment?
I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I do have an opinion. The point is that nobody else knows, either. So when a neurologist tells me that the effect I saw in my wife after treatment - a pronounced, measurable and sustained improvement - could simply be the placebo effect, now I know why she said that, and why she was wrong. And why her opinion on this matter is no more informed than mine.
And that’s why I started this blog.
