Botox to bloodflow: New help for MS patients

Multiple Sclerosis attacks when people are in the prime of their lives. It slowly robs them of control of their muscles and control of their lives.

It’s an autoimmune disease that targets the brain and nervous system.

…..While Audrey Mirels does use a wheelchair, at times it’s not her walking that bothered her it was another side effect of MS that was holding her hostage.

“I was making the bathroom my world. I was going every two minutes,” Mirels, an MS patient, told Action News.

Thousands of MS patients suffer from incontinence and overactive bladder. The first line of defense is oral medication but if that doesn’t work, the FDA has recently approved Botox.

“I said enough is enough,” Mirels explained.

“The Botox basically relaxes the spastic muscles nature,” Farzeen Firoozi, M.D., a urologist at the Arthur Smith Institute for Urology in New Hyde Park, NY, told Action News.

Patients receive 10 to 30 injections into the bladder wall. The Botox starts working within a week and lasts for up to nine months.

Read the full article at: http://abclocal.go.com/kfsn/story?section=news/health/health_watch&id=8666730

Source:  by Margot Kim for ABC KFSN-TV Fresno, CA May 21, 2012 at http://abclocal.go.com/kfsn/story?section=news/health/health_watch&id=8666730