Hey everyone:

The Sept/Oct 2004 issue of "Quest," the magazine for muscular dystrophy patients, includes an article called "Lab, Clinic Advance Hand in Hand at NIH/MDA Centers of Excellence: Rochester Center Zeroes in on Myotonic, FSH MDs," by Margaret Wahl. I'd like to copy the section about new developments with FSHD, the dystrophy I am fighting. Then I would appreciate any insight from those of you with MH degrees, to see how you would approach this disease from a natural healing perspective.

The word "dystrophy" means "malnutrition." Let's see if the natural health community has a cure, with God's help, for at least one form of muscular dystrophy. I have completed one month of Dr. Schulze 's IP, and will probably do another round starting Sept. 1 or so.

Here's the quote from the article. Brackets are mine:

"A New Look at FSHD"

"Rabi Tawil, associate professor of neurology, director of the Muscle and Nerve Pathology Lab, and co-director of the MDA clinic at UR[Rochester]MC, wants to take a closer look at people with FSH muscular dystrophy [Rochester decided it would focus on research for two dystrophies- myotonic and FSH].
"'One of the interesting things that a lot of patients report is that things seem to be stable for a long time, and then suddenly they develop pain and lose function in one muscle,' he says.
"Then there's the asymmetrical weakness and wasting in FSHD, which is atypical of most other dystrophies.
"'You can have one normal bicep and the other one can be completely wasted,' Tawil says. He asked himself, "Could this be the equivalent of some trigger activating an ischemic [related to loss of blood flow] process?'
"Tawil and colleagues have shown that genes controlling the activity of smooth muscle cells, such as those that line the blood vessels, are highly active (what scientists call upregulated [sic]) in people with FSHD.
"He suggests that some of the known vascular, or blood vessel-related, abnormalities in FSHD, such as retinal problems [to my knowledge, mu retinas are OK], might be a more important clue to muscle wasting than previously believed.
"'There seems to be a connection between the two, and we're trying to investigate that further,' he says.
"Tawil is collecting muscle samples to look more closely at differences in gene activity between people with FSHD and those without the disease. He's also examining the structure and number of blood vessels in FSHD-affected muscle tissue.
"'The reason we're able to do a large study is that we have all these resources here," Tawil says.'"

Thanks so much.
Blessings,
-Donna