Motor Neurone Disease - Psedobulbar Palsy

Post date: Apr 07, 2014 7:58:24 AM

My Mum was diagnosed with MND in a form of Psedobulbar Palsy early this year.

Her health started to deteriorate rapidly and we quickly learnt conventional medicine had no cure for it.

Mum's speech became slowed, slurred and nasal. Soon afterwards, breathing started to be a problem, swallowing and drinking became very difficult and she choked a lot on drinks, food and especially on her tablets.

Her tongue was more and more paralysed every week, the sublingual area (under the tongue) was very swollen and there was a lot of fasciculation (involuntary movement). With little room in the mouth, she dribbled constantly. Saliva was thick and sticky. Soft palate was discoloured and completely white. Mum also had uncontrollable outbursts of laughing. Her condition was becoming increasingly debilitating and she started to loose her independence.

In our desperate internet search for a cure, we discovered that "tongue acupuncture" developed in China by Dr Sun Jie Guang offered some hope to patients with MND. According to Dr. Sun of the Hong Kong International Tongue Acupuncture (Brain Disorders) Research Clinic -"In a clinical study that covers 125 cases of pseudobulbar paralysis caused by stroke, the overall effectiveness rate of tongue acupuncture treatment is 100%." This sounded very encouraging, however our Mum's MND was not stroke related.

http://www.tongueacupuncture.com/achievementsE.htm

Having a good experience with traditional Chinese acupuncture for a different condition in the past, Mum was very keen to try this new form of therapy. We were extremely lucky to find Dr Judy Zu, a tongue acupuncture practitioner in Sydney and the only TAP practitioner in Australia. Judy is also a doctor of both western and Chinese medicine from China.

After 10 sessions of tongue acupuncture (over ten consecutive days), Mum felt better and her swallowing, drinking and breathing gradually started to improve. Immediately after each session her tongue movement was enhanced and her speech clearer. After 20 treatments the sublingual swelling reduced very substantially and dribbling stopped.The colour of soft palate changed to pink again. After 40 treatments, she started to control her laughing outbursts and her swallowing became stable. We started to gradually reduce the number of TA sessions in a week.

The quality of Mum's speech still fluctuates but we hope for more improvement after more treatments.

The tongue acupuncture has been a life saving therapy to our Mum. It was not only possible to stop the rapidly escalating wave of paralysis that was robbing her of the ability to eat, swallow, breathe and communicate. Her condition improved significantly. She is stable at present and almost independent again.

Mum found tongue acupuncture treatment quite acceptable, occasionally there was some minor pain or slight bleeding, localised swelling and bruising from which she would recover by the next session. We have been continuing with the TA therapy for our Mum's MND.

Judy's tongue acupuncture skill is truly amazing and we are grateful to her for her help and commitment.

Jacob

Crows Nest NSW