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#ECTRIMS2016 – Stay Up to Date with My Pick of Congress Highlights

The show comes to town in the next week with ECTRIMS hosting what it describes as “the world’s largest annual international conference” devoted to basic treatment and clinical research in multiple sclerosis. It is being held in London’s ExCel center from Wednesday to Saturday morning, and will be followed…

James Received HSCT for Free, as He Lives in the UK

Virtually all the talk about availability of HSCT1 as an MS treatment includes the need to travel long distances to other countries, but U.K. residents can receive the treatment in London, avoiding the journey overseas. What’s more, it is provided through the country’s social National Health Service (NHS) so, like…

MS Patient’s Pick of the Week’s News: Siponimod, Thymosin Patent, Orphan Drug, Lifestyle, and Lymphopenia Risk

Here’s my Pick of the Week’s News, as published in Multiple Sclerosis News Today. Gilenya-like Therapy Shows Benefit in Secondary Progressive MS Patients in Phase 3 Trial Here’s a potentially encouraging development for anyone with SPMS. Patients with secondary progressive multiple sclerosis (SPMS) who were treated with BAF312 (siponimod),…

Taming Heat Sensitivity at 100 Degrees

Many people voiced their concerns to me about anyone with MS moving to live in a sunny climate. That worry is understandable. With a disease that includes heat sensitivity, where even a hot shower can make you worse, how can any MS patient move to live in an area where…

Welcome or Not, FDA Focuses on Stem Cell Treatments

News that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is to hold a public hearing next month to consider greater oversight of stem cell clinics operating in the country is as welcome as it is late. I say “late” because, while the regulators have been twiddling their fingers,…

Help for Anyone Newly Diagnosed with MS

Being diagnosed with MS can be more than a bit of a shock at first. Yes, you finally know what you’ve got, what all those symptoms you’ve having mean, and you have heard what your neurologist told you. Well, you may have heard, but you didn’t take it in…

My Life is My Own, MS Cannot Have It

It is often said that real life mimics television, and one hit TV series certainly reflects the theme: “my life is my own, MS cannot have it.” During the 1960s, 1967–68 to be exact, an iconic television show ran on Sunday nights called “The Prisoner.” It starred Patrick McGoohan as…

RebiSmart Device Seen to Improve Adherence to Therapy in RRMS Patients

People with relapsing multiple sclerosis who use a device called RebiSmart (Merck Serono) to self-inject medications like Rebif (interferon [IFN] beta-1a) are more likely to take their therapies on a regular schedule and adhere to that schedule, resulting in fewer relapses than those not using the device, according to a retrospective study by  researchers…

5 Multiple Sclerosis Treatment Options

There are no specific therapies that can effectively cure patients with multiple sclerosis. However, there are a number of multiple sclerosis treatment options, particularly for the relapsing-remitting form of the disease. 1.Immunomodulation therapies which can control the inflammation of myelin sheaths and help restore the central nervous system.

Wondering How MS Will Affect Me Today

Waking up in the morning and facing the world brings a sense of wonder. Not in the sense of awe, just in wondering how MS will affect me today. Is it a good day or a bad day? What will it bring? Like most people,…

Stem Cell Clinics Under Critical Scrutiny in US

Stem cell clinics are proliferating in the U.S., where there are now 570 in operation, according to a paper quoted by the New York Times. And concerns are being raised that these clinics are often operating and making claims beyond those allowed by the country’s public health regulatory…

Phase 2 Study of Oral Antibiotic to Treat Relapsing MS, RHB-104, Nearing Finish

RedHill Biopharma announced that the final patient has completed the last step of its Phase 2 clinical study (CEASE-MS) of RHB-104 as a potential treatment for people with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS). RHB-104 is an antibiotic oral medication that blocks inflammation in addition to killing bacteria. RHB-104 was originally developed as a treatment for…

MS Patients in US and UK Face Very Different Treatment

  We may have international cooperation and worldwide this and that, but the fact remains that countries vary drastically from one another in all sorts of ways. Take healthcare as an example, and the costs of treatment. Yes, we have the World Health Organization and there are various health-related initiatives…

Nearly 75% of MS Patients in UK Study Went Through Progressive Decline Prior to Death

A new study  focused on an aspect of multiple sclerosis (MS) that is sometimes overlooked by researchers: progressive dwindling, or the tendency over time for people with MS to become increasingly frail and dependent on caregivers, with diminished energy and heightened disability. The report, “Progressive Dwindling in Multiple Sclerosis: An Opportunity…

Action Is Needed: Costs Limit MS Patients’ Access to DMTs

A recent survey of more than 6,000 multiple sclerosis patients in the United States found that health insurance coverage can decide their access to disease-modifying therapies (DMTs), and that that coverage is worsening, leaving a good number struggling to be able to pay for their treatment. As an MS patient myself, I find…

‘My Super Diet Cured My MS! Buy My Book!’

There seems to be general agreement that achieving and keeping an overall level of good health is very important for people living with multiple sclerosis, or with any chronic illness for that matter. And one way to reach that goal, many will say, is to eat a healthy, well-balanced diet. It’s at…