Multiple Sclerosis Nurses trialling a drug-free therapy to treat MS nerve pain.

APS machines - pain treatment

APS machines – pain treatment

Two MS Specialist Nurses from at MS Therapy Centre in Bedford, UK, have been trialling a drug-free microcurrent machine to treat pain in MS with very positive, and surprisingly wide ranging effects.

The treatment, Action Potential Simulation Therapy, or APS Therapy, uses a copy of the body’s own electrical signals – the ‘action potentials’ that travel along nerve fibres, to enhance communication between the cells, using an APS Therapy machine.

Neurons and nerve pain

Neurons and nerve pain

“The results we’re seeing, are, firstly, pain relief, in over 3/4s of the people with MS who have been treated over the past 3 years at the clinic. This is really significant, especially as the type of neuropathic, or nerve pain, that many people with MS experience, is very difficult to treat, and there are so many problems with side effects from the medication.

“I started off being most excited by the pain relief, and helping people to reduce and in some cases withdraw from medications they’re taking for pain, and of course I still am.

But recently, I’ve been most excited by the other improvements that some peopleMiranda Olding get – we had a lot of people reporting improvements in energy, with reduced fatigue, better sleep quality, feeling less stiffness and spasm, and often, really improved wellbeing, when they used the machines for pain, and so in the past year we’ve begun to try using the machines specifically for these problems, and had some lovely results,” says Miranda Olding.

The nurses, Queen’s Nurse Emma Matthews from Northampton, and Miranda Olding from Bedford, cannot share the full results of their report on the first two years of treatment with APS Therapy until it’s been presented at the CMSC conference in Maryland, which they are travelling to in June. They also aim to present their 3rd year results at other clinical conferences during the year.

The mode of action of APS Therapy is to enhance cellular communication by sending replicated action potentials, which are up to 4 times stronger than the naturally occurring signals, through the body, between electrodes attached to the skin.

This assists the removal of waste and inflammatory products, which can reduce localised pain and swelling. The production of ATP ( adenosine triphosphate) is boosted by the therapy, which results for some people in increased energy levels, and also stimulates natural healing mechanisms. Other neuro-hormones that encourage healing and endogenous pain relief are also boosted, and some neuropathic pain seem to respond very well to the application of this correct, rather than disordered, nerve signal.

Results for people with MS can be very wide-ranging. This report came from Maggie, who has had MS for over 20 years, on her 4th week into the treatment. (She has retained all these benefits)

“‘Notes on progress of the fourth week”
• ˜Sleep improvements maintained although still wake frequently.
• ˜Pain during day virtually gone.
• ˜Pain at night much reduced – now only troubling between 6-8am.
• ˜Energy levels greatly improved. Much more stamina…
• ˜I can now easily get up from a chair even one without arms!
• ˜I can lower myself gently down instead of flinging myself down.
• ˜I can move around with ease and no longer have to plan everything I need to do. I can walk around indoors without a stick.
• ˜I can stand long enough to do some housework and get myself some lunch.
• ˜The ‘electric shock’ feelings I was experiencing in the head have been getting less in frequency.
• ˜The physio that I do in the group and in the pool have got better.
• ˜I can stay on a gym ball for the whole session and the physio has noticed as improvement in my posture and walking.
• ˜Mood- has elevated to new heights. I am delighted with the transformation – I feel I am getting me back.”

Not everyone who tries APS Therapy experiences these type of benefits, but the

Maggie does APS Therapy

Maggie does APS Therapy

team are having enough similar reports to merit offering APS Therapy as a trial treatment for people with MS who are struggling with fatigue as well as solely for pain, and to be excited by the potential applications of APS Therapy in people with MS.

Miranda Olding now splits her time between working as an MS Specialist Nurse, and working on introducing APS Therapy in the UK, both teaching and training and collecting data, and running a business where people can train, or rent or buy APS Therapy machines with one to one support over Skype, Facetime or Webex. You can find out more at www.painfreepotential.co.uk

Hospital welcomes the first new MS Trust specialist nurses

MS Trust Multiple Sclerosis Specialist Nurses

MS Trust Multiple Sclerosis Specialist Nurses

Leicester Hospitals is delighted to welcome the first two new MS nurses to be funded and trained by the MS Trust as part of its nationwide specialist nurse programme.

The MS Trust estimates there are around 1600 people living with MS in the Leicestershire and Rutland area.  They live with a lifelong, unpredictable, sometimes deliberating condition.  Joanne Pughe and Jonathan Maisey will be delivering care across the county and will support patients through diagnosis, help them to maintain their health while living with the condition, and continue to provide expert care and guidance. They also work closely with other health and social care professionals to help plan patient care.

The MS Trust has supported the recruitment of both nurses and the Specialist Nurse Programme will be funding one full-time post for 15 months with Leicester’s Hospitals reviewing the extension of the posts after that time.  Over the coming months the MS Trust will work with the Leicester MS team to help them make the most of the new nurses and demonstrate the difference they make to local people.

Pam Macfarlane, Chief Executive of the MS Trust, explains: “The MS Trust has long campaigned about the need for more MS nurses, but this is the first time it has taken the step of helping develop and fund new posts itself.

“Everyone is incredibly excited about the new MS nurses in Leicester. We hope these nurses will make a huge difference to the hundreds of local people living with MS. We’re grateful to all our supporters for helping us take the first step towards our overall goal of making sure that no one in the UK has to manage MS alone.”

The MS Trust conducts regular research into nursing levels across the UK and has found around two-thirds of the 108,000 people with MS in the UK live in areas where there are not enough MS nurses. The research highlighted Leicester as one of the area’s most urgently in need of support.

Allison Smith, MS Specialist Nurse for Leicester’s Hospitals, added: “We were so pleased to be the recipients of the MS Trust funding. We have really big plans to support people with MS throughout Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland by having more community clinics and allowing more access to MS specialists. We have around 1600 people with MS known to us and I am sure they will be happy to hear that they will now have more access to support.

“MS specialist nurses are vital for people living with MS. They can help them adjust to diagnosis, consider complicated treatment options, manage a wide range of symptoms and learn to live well with an unpredictable, often debilitating, lifelong condition.

“Without MS nurses, people with MS may have to manage difficult symptoms alone and they may also have to rely on expensive emergency care when their symptoms get worse.”

Jon Knight, from Melton Mowbray, has been supported by the MS nurses in Leicester since he was diagnosed with MS almost 10 years ago. He said: “I would like to say thank you very much to all the MS Trust’s supporters. The new MS nurses will make such a difference. You could go through something like MS alone, or you could go through it with someone at the end of the phone who you can rely on. I would always take the second option, definitely. Funding this to help people like me is amazing.”