In March 1997 I was diagnosed with MS at Wycombe General Hospital in Buckinghamshire in the UK by neurologist Dr Matthew Jackson on the basis of an MRI scan followed by a lumbar puncture. He was extremely quick to make the diagnosis on the spot without considering or testing for possible alternatives, and despite the fact that his colleague who previously examined me had expressed doubt that this was the cause and had written to my GP to say so. At the time I was experiencing some sensory symptoms including paralysing cramps in my hands. Dr Jackson told me that heat would make my symptoms worse, but in actual fact the only thing that relieved them was to lie on my hands on a boiling hot electric blanket. This was cause in itself to throw doubt on the diagnosis, yet Dr Jackson chose to totally ignore this glaring fact. He gave me a three day course of intravenous methylprednisone steroid treatment, which did nothing to alleviate my sensory symptoms whatsoever. He also gave me no warning about going down the diagnostic route or how negatively the MS diagnosis would affect my life and future. On the contrary, he actively encouraged me to do this saying that there was "lots he could do if the diagnosis was confirmed". However, when the lumbar puncture came back positive, he told me there was "nothing he could do" as I'd already had the steroid treatment, so all it achieved was to blemish my medical records. If anyone asks for permission to access these, I am damned if I allow it and damned if I don't, so I am unable to register with a GP in the UK permanently. Currently my medical records are lodged with the local health authority where after 5 years they will go off site and after 10 be destroyed so that I once again have a clean bill of health. This is my only option!
In addition, Dr Jackson told me to forget my plans and dreams to immigrate. He said no country would ever want me because I'd become a burden on them. He told me that I was going to end up blind, deaf, have speech problems, and be paralysed and doubly incontinent, and that I needed to join the MS Society and get used to wheelchairs and incontinence pads. He said I had MS, I'd always have MS and I'd never be able to get rid of it. As he said this, he underlined the word "MS" over and over in front of me, and he laughed and told me not to "shoot the messenger". He then wrote to my GP and said I was confused about the disease when I questioned it.
I complained to Patient Services at Wycombe General Hospital about Dr Jackson's treatment of me, but was fobbed off and told that he had "every right to say the things he did based on my diagnosis".
On top of this, he tried to persuade me to attend dangerous clinical trials for personal financial gain (1000 in his pocket), from which several of the participants later died from CJD from contaminated blood they were given. How corrupt is that?
One of the symptoms Dr Jackson made his diagnosis on was blurred vision - he said this was the "all important 3rd symptom he needed". However, at Windsor Eye Hospital where I was seen several, specialists looked and looked endlessly at my affected eye and were so baffled that they eventually referred me to Dr Kanski, their top guy who has operated on royalty. He told me that the 1st thing they look for/suspect in a person of my age who presents with blurred vision is optic neuritis, which is often the 1st sign of MS. He said that it's easy to pick up on and my problem categorically wasn't this. After Dr Jackson diagnosed me with MS, I went back to Windsor Eye Hospital and told them what I had and the eye doctor I'd seen there said no I didn't, yet despite the fact that she wrote to him and told him this, he refused to retract the diagnosis.
In spite of Dr Jackson's negative predictions I did manage to emigrate, but I continued to suffer from sensory symptoms for the next 7 years, then in June started getting mobility problems (a dropped right leg). This started deteriorating in 2006 and a further neurological attack left me unable to walk alone and with balance problems. In January I moved to Vancouver Island, Canada and made an appointment with a clinic called Woodgrove Pines in Nanaimo, who advised me to see their naturopathic doctor, Stacy Neilson. She recommended a number of tests including a urine provocation test for heavy metals as an initial computerised test showed that these were present in my body. In N America naturopathic doctors are not peripheral and "alternative" to orthodox medicine like they are in the UK. They undergo exactly the same medical training as regular GPs and more with their main function to look for the cause of an illness/condition, and they share many of the same rights and abilities, eg to undertake IV therapies, prescribe medication, perform minor surgery etc. There are only 7 colleges throughout N America (2 in Canada and 5 in the USA) that are regulated by the AANMC (Accredited Association for Naturopathic Medical Colleges) and offer this specialised training... Stacy went on maternity leave and my case was transferred to another clinic in Nanaimo called Arbour Wellness, where I saw a naturopathic doctor called Heather Eade. When she looked at the result of my first urine provocation test, she said that she had never seen such high levels of both mercury and lead in her whole career - they were so elevated, they were off the chart I had elevated levels of both aluminium and cadmium, and it was no wonder I was ill she was surprised I wasn't worse! She prescribed and administered a course of IV chelation therapy to remove the metals from my body. It got rid of all the lead, aluminium and cadmium more than half the mercury and I experienced a dramatic improvement in my symptoms, ie the reduction in heavy metals correlated directly to my improvement in symptoms. A few weeks prior to having the chelation therapy, I had lost the use of my left leg too a lot of the strength in both my legs, but within a couple of weeks of finishing the chelation therapy treatment I had regained this. The second urine provocation test result showed that I needed more chelation therapy, so I went on to have another course of it. The urine provocation tests were sent to a lab called Doctor's Data Inc in Illinois, USA... that specialises in this testing. It is licensed, certified and recognised throughout N America for its high credibility (trustworthiness and expertise). It is not affiliated to any particular clinic. Because heavy metals sit/hide in fatty tissues, they are generally not visible in ordinary GP blood or urine tests, but need to be "provoked" out using a chelating agent like EDTA, DMPS or DMSA and measured in the urine over several hours. This is a well known fact and there is a famous case of a Canadian called Ken Presner who was misdiagnosed with MS and who also cured himself of his symptoms with chelation therapy following a urine provocation test that revealed he had extreme heavy metal toxicity.
Before I went to Canada I was being overseen by an ex GP who has MS himself, Dr Lawrence of Dietary Research in Wales. He used to prescribe LDN (low dose naltrexone) for me. At high doses (50mg) naltrexone is used by recovering heroin addicts, but at low doses of 3 - 4.5mg it has had amazing results with MS sufferers. However, I took it for 10 months to no avail - it did nothing for me. Even before I had the urine provocation tests, Dr Lawrence maintained that I was very untypical of someone with MS because of my strong reaction to his zinc taste test. He was so surprised by my reaction that he sent me another test via a practitioner that he was associated with. It was a blind test - I had to identify the zinc out of 3 liquids, which I did immediately. Even the practitioner wasn't let in on which liquid was the zinc taste test and was just instructed to pass the result on to Dr Lawrence. Dr Lawrence also said that my high heat tolerance was very untypical of an MS sufferer - I still sleep every night on a boiling hot electric blanket and it greatly improves/relieves my symptoms. In 2007 he wrote a letter to my then GP stating how unusual both of these were in his experience. He has tested 100s of people with MS and all of them without exception (he has about 600 on his database) have a zinc deficiency they all have an intolerance to heat. In addition, a zinc deficiency and heat intolerance are commonly associated with MS sufferers in general. In the letter he questioned whether I could have something else other than MS and asked the doctor to conduct further investigations. In the face of the overwhelming evidence of my heavy metal toxicity, as well as the dramatic improvement I experienced in my symptoms after the first course of chelation therapy and the fact that I have not had a single neurological attack since all the metals were removed and there is no evidence of auto immune disease in my family, Dr Lawrence now believes 100% that I do not have MS, nor could the heavy metal toxicity have triggered it. He believes that I was misdiagnosed and the medically trained naturopathic doctors in Canada also told me that I was misdiagnosed. They said I had been "overlooked" by the medical system in the UK.
I have no dental amalgam fillings and it is likely that I contracted the heavy metal poisoning from the antiquated plumbing system in the very old family property in Beaconsfield, Bucks - my father also has classic symptoms of mercury poisoning including atherosclerosis my mother died of breast cancer and my sister has premature arthritic symptoms, but was lucky enough to leave the property before they got any worse. The tendency for heavy metals to sit/hide in fatty tissues is a possible explanation as to why more women are diagnosed with MS than men, ie because women generally have more fatty tissue than men, which leads me to question how many other women have been misdiagnosed with MS at great and needless expense to the NHS and benefits system, let alone the personal effects on them and their families. Personally, the damage caused to me physically, psychologically, emotionally, financially and careerwise by the misdiagnosis is phenomenal.
The similarities between MS & mercury poisoning have been medically proven...
It proves conclusively that mercury poisoning is a total mimicker for MS and that heavy metal toxicity is what I had, not MS. I quote from it...
Multiple Sclerosis is a nervous system disorder that results in myelin destruction. Mercury poisoning has also been proven to cause myelin destruction!
MS is very difficult to diagnose. Part of the diagnosing procedure for MS is to rule out mimics of the disease. Yet Dr Jackson DID NOT do this even though MS symptoms are identical to mercury poisoning. Chronic mercury toxicity (which is what I had) cannot be distinguished from MS. Mercury sits/hides in the tissues and has to be provocated out by a chelating agent in order to be measured.
People who have been known to have mercury poisoning showed elevated levels of protein in spinal fluids. Spinal protein levels are also elevated in people with MS. Mercury has been found in the spinal fluid of MS patients. In fact 8 times more mercury is found in the spinal fluid of MS patients than in the spinal fluid of those without MS.
I summarize... Mercury poisoning causes identical symptoms to MS, and can cause lesions on MRI scans and raised levels of protein in the CSF fluid, both of which Dr Jackson used to diagnose me with MS. If heavy metal toxicity can mimic MS and is curable by chelation therapy, then testing for it FIRST BEFORE diagnosing MS should have been an automatic procedure on his part.
In a nutshell, Dr Jackson misdiagnosed me with MS when I had heavy metal toxicity and without eliminating this possibility first. He also ignored my high heat tolerance and the fact that I did not have optic neuritis - 2 key factors that should have led him to doubt/question the MS diagnosis. In addition, he gleefully made horrifying predictions about my outcome on the basis of a disease that it has now been proved I never had and tried to persuade me attend dangerous clinical trials from which several participants subsequently died for personal financial gain. Dr Jackson is negligent, profit motivated and unprofessional. He has several other complaints against him for his behaviour, yet nothing has been done about it and he is still working at Wycombe Hospital. Other patients beware - STAY AWAY & DO NOT GO NEAR HIM!!
(PS For identification purposes, Dr Matthew Jackson is married to Patricia Irwin from Gerrards Cross. His 3 eldest children are called Catherine, Thomas & William.)
0 comments