Ok everyone-the best thing in the world happened to me and I hope you will look into this.
I am 2.5 years post surgery. I am an incomplete paraplegic with little to no feeling from the hips down. I have been “walking” if you can call it that, more stumbling with a cane to get around. I did all the PT inpatient and then months of outpatient as well. They did say I would never walk again, so things could have been worse.
But I found this study at the Shirley Ryan Ability lab in Chicago-it is available elsewhere, so start looking! After 12 weeks and 36 session I am walking (98% of the time) unassisted and I am back to playing golf every Sunday! Seriously you guys check this out, it brought me back to life.
The eksoskeleton is a robot that teaches you to walk again. I still don’t have feeling but this technology worked for me. I was part of the WISE study, it was very time consuming and challenging and I traveled over 100 miles for each visit. But trust me it was worth all the time and effort!
Wow, Kathleen what great news for you, and perhaps for some others here. Such good news, delivered with such enthusiasm, in fact, that we had some members who thought that you were a shill. This delayed your good news being posted.
Although you looked like someone new arriving out of the blue, in fact you’ve been around here for a while, but not active lately. Unfortunately, when the community moved to a new platform, all the profiles of existing members “fell off the back of the truck”. Perhaps you could add a quick summary of what you’ve been through – 'cause you’ve been through lots – so that we have a bit of background to put your experience into perspective.
Can you tell us a bit more about the process of getting onto a study for this kind of treatment? You say that you found a study at Shirley Ryan. How did you find out about this? What was required of you to join the study? If someone were to want to find a study, how would they go about that?
And do you know of any places where the exoskeleton treatment is available (not experimentally)?
Hi Kathleen,
I don’t need the Exoskeleton, but I see people use it at the PT facility I go to. It is amazing technology! Also, there is a treadmill that is called “Body weight”. It suspends you over a treadmill and assists walking. And Functional Electrical Stimulation on an elliptical, RT600, are the two things that they use for me that have allowed me to make a ton of recovery.
I am so happy you found a treatment that worked for you and that you are doing so well.
P.S. I go to PT at the Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan in Detroit Michigan. State-of-the-art facility.
That is awesome! Thank you for sharing. I have PT at SRA again this month, I will ask about the treadmill. Although Ekso has helped me a ton, I am not at 100% and that is of course, the goal.
I posted about esko awhile ago. It brought me back to life! Im an incomplete parapalegic but with esko training, I now walk unassisted everyday ( not quickly :)). It’s amazing anyone with spinal should find out more about this. I went from dragging my legs everywhere I went with a walker or a cane to golfing