Helpful exercise for L'Hermitte's sign

[tingletingle]

Hey all you sufferers of L'Hermitte's sign,

You may have already heard about this but unfortunately I hadn't. It has instantly worked for me and taken away the electricity in my neck for around half an hour while I did my sit ups.Too early to tell if it is a cure but it made a huge difference to the shocking feeling in my neck. Unfortunately, I still had electricity in my left arm but I am sure I will work out some sort of opposite exercise to make this go away too.

The exercise is called a neck extension. While sitting or standing, twine your fingers together behind your head. Gently press forward with your hands to provide resistance while you press your head backwards. Push your hands as far back as possible, using the strength in your neck. Hold the contracted position for three to four seconds. Slowly push your head back to the front with your hands, while resisting with your neck.

Try and do 10 to 25 repititions twice a week, then a few more reps whenever you feel the return of symptoms. I'm hoping that as I build strength in my neck I will get permanent remission of this symptom.

You could probably find more info on how to do this exercise on the net if you wanted more detailed instructions.

Best of luck

Blessings
Alex

[grannyhotwheels]

My PT showed me this exercise and it really does help... I'm not sure if it will cure it but I can tell a difference... Keeping our muscles as strong as we can does help... Leg lifts with a can of corn will strengthen your legs and it helps with the spasms... This helps me also... I have found that the more I do to strengthen my muscles helps a lot with the spasms...

I'll be praying,
Carol

[doublevision1]

I do neck stretching like this as part of my morning wake up routine. I'm not sure it builds neck strength so much as it increases muscle flexibiilty and thus redces the risk of injury to the neck muscles.   It has made me more comfortable with less neck strain, but has had no impact, positive or negative, on my Lhermitte's.  Lhermitte's is due to areas of demyelination of nerves in the cervical spine, so I'm not clear on how building flexibility or strength in the neck could improve a symptom that's due to loss of myelin.  Having said that, there are still many unknowns with MS, and there may be something at work here that's beyond the grasp of my little pea brain, lol.  If it works for you, by all means keep doing it!  If others have success too, let us know.  I'm intrigued.

[sllowe]

Really? It's working? Yay!

Thank you so much, I'm definitely going to try this!

Neck strengthening is good no matter what. So, even if it doesn't help my Lhermittes, I'm going to do it.
Mucho thanks
-shell