People with multiple sclerosis are spending thousands of dollars and travelling around the world hoping that a new, unproven procedure will improve or eliminate their symptoms.

While some come home claiming success, others face life-threatening consequences.

Steven Weisz flew to Costa Rica on Sept. 8, determined to obtain the medical treatment that is not available in Canada.

"I could be making the worst decision of my life going down there," said Weisz, but his strong survival instinct coupled with desperation is too compelling to deny.

He was first diagnosed with MS in 2000, at the age of 30.

"You know when your foot goes to sleep? My feet went to sleep," said Weisz.

"My tingling feet became tingling calves became tingling thighs."

The diagnosis turned his whole world upside down, prompting him to ask his girlfriend to marry, then pushing her away.

"I was starting to think I'm getting worse and worse and I can't have a life with her," said Weisz.

Bushra Qureshi, 41, has lived with MS for 20 years.

"All of a sudden I was barely able to walk. I had to grope the walls just to get around the apartment," said Qureshi.

"That's when the depression started and the depression was coupled with a lot of anger."

She recently suffered a medical setback.

"My MS was no longer relapse-remitting. It's now secondary progressive," she said.

When news broke last year that Italian doctor Paolo Zamboni had a new hypothesis about the cause of MS, coupled with a relatively simple treatment, MS specialists were caught off guard.

People suffering from MS and its slow, gradual, and unstoppable deterioration were stunned by the idea that the disease might be caused by a narrowing of veins in the chest and neck, causing a buildup of blood and iron in the brain.

Zamboni calls the condition CCSVI, and argues the condition can be treated with venoplasty -- unblocking veins with a balloon.

However MS has long been viewed as an auto-immune disease and Zamboni's startling findings have not yet been replicated by other studies.

"The trouble is that there's iron deposited abnormally in the brains of people with other medical conditions that don't have these waves of immune system-attack-causing damage that we associate with MS," said Dr. Amit Bar-or of the Montreal Neurological Institute.

Despite the medical communities skepticism, hundreds of Canadians began travelling around the world, seeking out the experimental treatment.

"What has happened here is the cart has been put several horse-lengths in front of the horse," said Dr. Bar-or.

People living with MS say they are already at the mercy of their disease.

Qureshi saved $10,000 for a trip to New York, while Weisz flew to Central America.

After extensive pre-op exams and an ultrasound test, a balloon catheter is inserted to widen the veins in Weisz's neck. With no complications, he is offered some physiotherapy and flew home to Montreal.

Weeks after the procedure, his symptoms are unchanged, although friends say he is walking faster than before.

Quereshi thinks she is slightly more stable, but any improvement may be a placebo effect.

However in many cases, doctors in Canada are finding medical tourists returning with a staggering number of complications -- one person required open heart surgery, and another died after developing a deadly blood clot.

For the rest of the story, please watch the video to the right.