Five months ago, Hamilton General Hospital nurse Debra Beckon flew to India to undergo an unproven procedure called “liberation treatment” she hoped would help alleviate her symptoms of multiple sclerosis.

And just like Ontario resident Mahir Mostic, the first Canadian to die of complications from his “liberation” operation, Beckon had a stent inserted into her jugular vein where a large blood clot subsequently formed.

Unlike Mostic, though, Beckon says Canadian doctors are treating her here at home using a slower and less powerful clot busting regime that she hopes will restore the improvements she felt for a few brief weeks after “liberation.”

“I do believe the procedure has merit,” said the 53-year-old Grimsby resident Monday.

Beckon is among an increasing number of Hamilton-area residents who say liberation treatment should be offered in Canada where pre and post-operative health care is of a higher standard.

“They need to start doing the procedure here so that they can impose their own standards of practice, including everything they’ve learned from cardiac stenting.”

The liberation treatment was created by Italian doctor Paolo Zamboni, who theorizes that many MS symptoms are the result of narrowed or twisted veins in the neck that do not allow blood to properly drain from the brain and spinal cord. He called it chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency (CCSVI). Treating CCSVI involves angioplasty, where balloons are threaded into the blockages and then inflated to widen the veins. Zamboni, however, has not advocated the use of stents — metal mesh cylinders — to keep the blocked veins open.

Canada has not approved the treatment, so MS patients are looking to places like Costa Rica, India, Poland, the U.S., Mexico, Scotland, Germany, Belgium, Italy and Serbia to get it done.

The CCSVI theory held no mystery for Beckon. For years, the 53-year-old worked daily in Hamilton General’s heart unit where angiograms, angioplasty and stents are par for the course. She understood both the procedure and its risks.

Both Beckon’s jugulars had structural blockages. A balloon opened the right one and doctors at Jaipur Golden Hospital in New Delhi decided a stent was needed to keep the left jugular open.

Almost immediately afterward, Beckon said she felt dramatic improvement.

“A whole shroud of fatigue lifted, there was more sensation in my legs, I could wiggle my toes again, balance better and walk unassisted” for short periods of time, she said.

But two weeks later, the old symptoms began to creep back. Within a month, she was back to the symptoms before the angioplasty. Back in Canada, her doctor sent her for a Doppler scan, which revealed a massive clot at the site of the stent.

Under the care of her family doctor, a neurologist and a thrombosis (blood clot) specialist, her medical team has put her on a heparin anticoagulant treatment to slowly melt away the clot. Beckon said the treatment will take at least six months.