MITRAL VALVE PROLAPSE and TRANSVERSE MYELITIS: A Double Whammy! Part I

I feel like I’ve gone through most of my life with my hands tied. When I finally learned to untie my hands so that I could function more normally, someone managed to shackle my feet!

I was 50 years old before I was diagnosed with Mitral Valve Prolapse (MVP). Before that, everyone told me that there was nothing wrong with me. Somehow, my body told me differently. I was either stuck in ‘high gear’ and couldn’t come down until I finally crashed (that usually meant migraines) or I would get stuck in ‘low gear’ and could barely move; I felt lethargic, and had a hard time getting out of it. When I would finally get a good day, I’d try to make up for lost time, and end up doing too much, causing me to ‘crash’ again. And by the time I was a young mother, the good days came only once in 8 or 10 days – maybe. I think that’s when I really perfected the habit of pushing myself and refusing to listen to my body. At the same time, there were people trying to tell me that there was nothing wrong with me, basically implying – if not openly saying – that I was either ‘lazy or crazy’. It was harder to refuse to listen to them.

That’s when things started getting more serious, because all that criticism only created really fertile ground for depression! I was fortunate enough, though, through the years, to run across various things that helped: general Gospel principals (without them, I would have been suicidal), and specific Priesthood blessings (which led me to discover and utilize things like positive attitude, exercise, and nutrition). I began to develop the belief that I have now, that many things (like depression) that are considered mental, often also have a physical side. Then when I was finally diagnosed with MVP, I not only found out that there were many others who suffered the same symptoms that I had, but had also suffered similar criticism and ridicule before finally finding a doctor able to diagnose their condition.

My new knowledge didn’t change my condition – there’s no cure for it. But it helped me to finally realize that my body hadn’t been lying to me, and that I should have been listening to it instead of to the people who didn’t know! Reading all the MVP literature I could find (it was pretty sparse then) also helped me to see more clearly that, though there are no ‘cures’, there are ways to handle the fatigue and stress and constantly fluctuating ‘ups and downs’ as well as other symptoms. One of the biggest helps to controlling my energy level as well as my migraines, was exercise. (For me, that meant walking, since I don’t consider myself coordinated enough to do much else :) Limiting sugar and eating more complex carbohydrates (like whole grains and vegetables) was another thing that helped. It wasn’t easy, but if I watched the sugar, ate plenty of vegetables, walked several times a week, and drank plenty of water, I could live almost like normal. (Of course, it’s not ‘normal’ to live like that – it still made me different from everybody else – but at least now I was feeling good while I was being different! :)

And then, Transverse Myelitis (TM) hit me! I was paralyzed from the rib cage down on my right side, and had no feeling in the skin on my left side. How was I to walk? If exercise was what helped me to function normally with MVP, what would happen now?

And what exactly are MVP and TM and how do they affect the nervous system?

(to be continued)