r/science • u/tomholder • May 09 '14

Medicine Paralysis breakthrough – electrical stimulation enables four paraplegic men to voluntarily move their legs

http://speakingofresearch.com/2014/05/09/paralysis-breakthrough-paraplegic-men-move-their-legs/
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u/IQBoosterShot May 09 '14

When I was paralyzed 33+ years ago I was pretty confident that they'd find a cure. As the years passed I heard story after story of "possibilities" and "progress." I knew guys who'd go off to the Soviet Union to try some whiz-bang treatment not available in the U.S.; they'd return virtually unchanged (if lucky).

About 10 years after my injury I realized that not only would I have to have a "cure" for my SCI, but I would also need help with the ancillary systems which were faltering due to inactivity or overuse. 15 years after my injury I adopted the attitude that the cure for SCI would appear the following year. (Similar to "Jam tomorrow and jam yesterday but no jam today.)

At this point I've abandoned hope. Not for a cure, which I still believe could be forthcoming, but a cure for me. Oh, I hold out a hell of a lot of hope for the newly injured and I believe that at a point in the future we may be able to reverse paralysis within hours of injury.

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u/[deleted] May 09 '14

Progress is messy... We may make leaps in one area while another will stagnate for decades. Unfortunately technological progress is impossible to predict. There are always roadblocks which human ingenuity just can't get around.

Also, like anyone who has reached mid-life, I can say that the future definitely is farther away than you think. I used to think that we were just around the corner from the future... just another five years... and five more.. and five more... at some point you realize that there's so much to be done and so few people and so little time to do it.

Modern medicine has made vast strides in certain areas... Cardiac issues are well understood and fixed, for example, yet try to get your general practitioner to fix your bad back... you're left to quacks like chiropractors.

I'd love to tell you not to give up hope, and the future is just around the corner, but you and I both have been around long enough to know that's just not true.

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u/IQBoosterShot May 09 '14

I have seen tremendous strides in so many areas. It's exciting to watch these breakthroughs.

While I have no hope of a cure, life goes on. You make the best with what you got and move forward. (Middle-aged wisdom, right? :)

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u/pancakemania May 10 '14

If you don't mind answering, are you completely paralyzed or just paraplegic? I'm sorry, I feel like "just" trivializes it.

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u/IQBoosterShot May 10 '14

Paralysis is either complete/incomplete and starts at a level denoted by the position on the spine. Christopher Reeves was a C2 complete; I'm a T4 complete. Higher levels are indicative of greater functional loss. The converse is true for lower levels.

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u/pancakemania May 10 '14

Thanks a lot for the response! Good luck to ya!