Ride For Life: PLS patient says anti-depression treatment helped him walk again

BLACKMAN TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — In more ways than one, Greg Hicok sees his ability to walk as a miracle.

For six years, Hicok, 45, was restricted to a wheelchair after he lost the use of his legs to PLS or Primary Lateral Sclerosis, a rare form of ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease.)

Hicok had all but given up hope of being able to move freely again. He steadily fell into a state of severe depression.

But it may have been a last-ditch effort to treat the depression which led to Hicok's ability to walk again. The renewed mobility gave him the chance to see the upstairs of his Jackson County home for the first time in nearly six years.

"I forgot the layout," Hicok told the Kalamazoo Gazette for a recent story, referring to the upstairs of his home. He was first diagnosed in 1995 and was forced to give up his career as an electrical engineer as the disease progressed.

For his wife, Tammy Hicok, her husband's recovery is nothing short of miraculous.

"This is just the biggest gift ever," she said. "A lot of people have been praying for us for years. I do think it's an answer to prayers."

But more than another chance at the life he once knew, Hicok's recovery may offer a chance to others who have lost the ability to walk because of the disease.

"This totally changes his life and the effect this disease has in life. And by making him more active, I believe it will prolong his life," said Greg Hicok's neurologist, Dr. Daniel Freeman. "It prevents him from getting other illness from being immobile."

Lou Gehrig's disease attacks motor neurons, progressively robbing its victims of their strength. Before he lost the use of his legs, he had been experiencing a slow progression of symptoms over eight years.

Freeman links Hicok's recovery to the treatments he had last spring for severe depression.

"We tried every anti-depressant there is, nothing was working," said Tammy Hicok, explaining her husband tried 13 different anti-depressant and medicine combinations.

Greg Hicok decided to try electroconvulsive treatments as a last resort to alleviate the depression, which he says partly was caused by big changes in his life, including three of his four boys growing up and moving away.

The treatments seem to have triggered neurons in his brain, alleviating the depression and, Freeman believes, altering the neurons in Hicok's brain and spinal cord, which relaxed his muscles and increased mobility.

Hicok continues treatments and notices motor improvement almost daily.

He is circling his home's first floor with a walker more than 30 times a day, totaling about a half mile at a time.

Hicok says he has new hope this holiday season.

"I can be a part of it rather than someone who sits on the sidelines, shaking my head yes or no," Greg Hicok said. "It makes me feel bad for people who have it worse."