Yoga for MS

LOS ANGELES (Ivanhoe Broadcast News) -- Medical science still has no cure for multiple sclerosis and drug treatments have met with limited success. But one MS patient insists yoga has changed his life. Now he’s trying to spread the word, and the technique, to others.

Eric Small knows his body pretty well. At 73, he’s been doing yoga for nearly 40 years … as a student -- and as a respected instructor. “It’s a complete rejuvenation system. And it’s non-stressful. And it’s self-motivating,” Small tells Ivanhoe.

It wasn’t just fitness that attracted Small to yoga back in his 20s, it was a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis. He says, “The yoga is the medicine. My drug of choice is the Hatha yoga practice.”

But Small wasn’t content simply treating his own ailment. His enthusiasm prompted him to start yoga classes at UCLA, and all over the country, for other MS patients.

Small's form of the disease, and possibly his years of yoga, have allowed him to remain relatively healthy. But many of his students aren’t so lucky. Some need help just to move in their wheelchairs. Still, they see the value of the exercises.

“How we need to sit, how we need to eat, how we need to work things out, how we need to stretch. He always encourages you, but he never pushes you," says Carmen Bell.

UCLA doctors agree, but warn that yoga is not a cure. “We don’t have any information that yoga arrests disease progression. What yoga does is it helps people feel and function better,” says Barbara Giesser, M.D., a neurologist at the UCLA MS Achievement Center.

Small believes his outcome would have been different without yoga. “I wouldn’t be here,” he says.

To date, Small has started yoga classes for multiple sclerosis patients in 16 locations in southern California. He has also trained instructors to run similar classes in Portland, Oregon, San Francisco, Boca Raton, Florida, Ashland, North Carolina, and Philadelphia.

This article was reported by Ivanhoe.com, who offers Medical Alerts by e-mail every day of the week. To subscribe, go to: http://www.ivanhoe.com/newsalert/.

If you would like more information, please contact:

Stephanie Fisher
Director, Multiple Sclerosis Achievement Center at UCLA
1000 Veteran Avenue
Suite 1162, Box 714722
Los Angeles, CA 90095-7147
(310) 267-4071