I've seen the movie "lorenzo's Oil" many years ago. Great Movie.
As I remember the boy had a metabolic disorder. Traditionally these people
were put on a fat free diet, but they died anyway because the some
particular fatty acid could not be broken down and it build up in the
central nervous system. The parents of the boy developed this special oil
that was similar to the "oil" that could not be broken down and gave him
that. Somehow this prevented further build up of this fatty acid and
basically was the first succesfull treatment of this disorder. Details are
incorrect but i think this is the general drift of the storyline.
Now your question: I don't see how taking lorenzo's oil could help you as
ATM is not a metabolic disorder but an auto-immuun response gone wrong,
triggered by a virus with a similar structure to structures found in myelin
sheaths in the CNS.
chiropractor wouldn't help either as they specialize high velocity
manipulations of joints.
Massage therapy could be helpful in normalizing tone, stimulating skin and
muscle sensors to try and send signals thru the spinal cord, pain relief
and general relaxation. But all this would still be symptomatic.
As for Nutitrition, all I know is:
- drinking cranberry juice is supposed to be good for preventing and
treating bladder infections.
- Commonly a fiber rich diet is recommended to speed up digestion, but I've
read one study that was done, where they found that a fiber rich diet
actually slowed down passage of food thru the colon and the sigmoid. But
that was just one study.
- A client of mine with TM found eating plenty of fruit helped his bowels.
- St. John's Wort(a flower) is apparently as effective as prozac against
depression with fewer side effects. Check with your physician.
I would always check medline at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed/ before
I tried something new. It is often very technical, but usually you can find
useful summaries of research done with the year it was done.
In my opinion (as a PT), you would be best of with physiotherapy (PT) with
stretching to prevent muscle contractures, R.O.M. exercises to maintain
R.O.M. , pain management and exercises geared toward regaining muscle
control and the ability to do practical activities like transfering,
standing, walking, eating, dressing.
I must grudgingly admit that occupational therapy would help you regain ADL's
Another therapy i think could be very helpful is relaxation therapy or
meditation.
Good luck,
Simon Kruithof, PT