Columns

Note: This column was updated July 23, 2020, to remove erroneous information about red blood cells. We regret the error.  When I was newly diagnosed seven years ago, one of the hardest things to deal with was the idea of having…

NICE Does Not Favor Adding Mayzent to NHS England for Active SPMS Currently, the only disease-modifying therapy approved for use in the National Health Service is Betaferon (interferon beta-1b). That’s a 20-year-old treatment considered to be one of the least effective of the DMTs. NICE concedes that clinical trials…

Last Wednesday my days of rest suddenly smashed to a halt. At one point it seemed like the majority of those who work for my local council’s social services (whom I should have also thanked for their immense help over the last few weeks, mea culpa) were squeezed into…

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve written about the impact that COVID-19 is having on people with MS. Since then, the picture has changed — not a lot, but enough for the MS International Federation to modify its recommendations for that illness, people with MS, and…

Over the years, I have observed how others deal with multiple sclerosis and its symptoms. This disorder is not one-size-fits-all, and it doesn’t discriminate. Recently, I came across a video of ABC News interviewing actress Selma Blair about her multiple sclerosis diagnosis and management. Although the interview happened over…

I’m a fraud. Or at least I feel like one.  When writing for a site about multiple sclerosis and setting up a business focused on my diagnosis to help others in the same boat, it is a requirement that I…

Gilenya May Help Control Severe Respiratory Disease in COVID-19 This story caught my eye, but not because of the possibility that Gilenya may help someone recover from COVID-19. It caught my eye because this information may give false hope to some people. Some doctors think that at a…

My family just returned from a lovely week-long vacation on the Gulf of Mexico. It’s always a wonderful time (and one perfectly suited to socially isolating) because we literally do nothing. We make no plans. We buy no tickets to any event or theme park. We sleep, read, and watch…

It hasn’t been that quiet in my surrounding world! Last week there was a crow fight so loud in our back garden that it echoed down the chimney into the front room that now is my bedroom. It sounded exactly like being in Hitchcock’s horror film “The Birds.”…

A couple new mobile apps for people with MS have caught my attention. Icompanion is among the best symptom and treatment trackers I’ve found. BelongMS combines patient forums with the ability to ask questions of healthcare specialists. Icompanion Several mobile apps allow users to enter information about how…

Editor’s note: “Need to Know” is a series inspired by common forum questions and comments from readers. Have a comment or question about MS? Visit our forum. This week’s question is inspired by the forum post, “Do you have eye issues due to MS?,” published Oct. 28, 2018.

I like my husband. I like his generous heart, his humility, and his penchant for Tommy Bahama shorts, T-shirts, and flip-flops. Sure, I love him. Yet our love has changed throughout our 23-year marriage. We have traded passion for patience and lust for loyalty. While each exists, they are…

Last updated April 25, 2023 In June, the U.K. marks Carers Week, which got me thinking about how a chronic illness diagnosis often affects a patient’s entire family.  Most often, patients are the focus of a diagnosis, and the people around them are almost forgotten. The…

Note: A story mentioned in this column, “Prime Signs Agreement With EMD Serono to Improve Mavenclad’s Cost-benefit Value,” was updated on June 15, 2020, to clarify that the agreement allows for possible reimbursement for Prime’s health plan clients, not patients…

Ah, it’s not the blank page that all writers fear that I’m worried about. Those days have long left me. Now it’s applying the discipline to stop! When I first started with a professional writing commission, I sat in the office all day with that fear freezing me. (Those were…

Are you tired? Really tired? Me, too. Most of us with multiple sclerosis are. How many is most? A small new study of 44 people with one of the progressive forms of MS found that the answer is a little over 86%. (I’m surprised the number isn’t higher.) They…

Editor’s note: “Need to Know” is a series inspired by common forum questions and comments from readers. Have a comment or question about MS? Visit our forum. This week’s question is inspired by the forum post “I’ve Been Spoiled by My Clinical Trial,” published March 5. Share your…

If laughter is the best medicine, then I have a functional pharmacy. I love to laugh and enjoy humor. If you are a friend of mine, then you know my dry wit. I use that wit to shield anxiety and fear. I ease the tension by creating humor. I…

Who wants to go on holiday?!  I know, I know, we can’t physically go anywhere right now, but what if I told you that you could go anywhere you wanted while staying at home? Stay with me! It’s been really sunny and blindingly hot in the U.K.

FDA Extends Review of Ofatumumab for Relapsing MS to September The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was expected to make a decision about ofatumumab, a self-administered injection of a monoclonal antibody, by this month. Now, it looks as if we’ll be waiting until fall. Ofatumumab is already approved…

Right now, it’s tempting to feel hopeless. COVID-19 is still out there with no vaccine in sight. Millions of people are out of work. And regardless of how you feel about the protests taking place in all 50 U.S. states (and around the world), all of us can admit…

“At the center of it all” is the dignity of allowing myself to retire with grace. And it only took a world-shattering event to get me to come to my senses! I’d been running, directing, producing, and sometimes writing (usually when comics got desperate with a 15-minute deadline. We…

By my unofficial count, disease-modifying therapy No. 19 has just become available to people with multiple sclerosis in the U.S. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Zeposia (ozanimod) in late March. While pharmaceutical companies usually rush to make newly approved medications available to patients, with COVID-19 raging,…

Editor’s note: “Need to Know” is a series inspired by common forum questions and comments from readers. Have a comment or question about MS? Visit our forum. This week’s question is inspired by the forum post “From Sun to Salt: Growing Role of Environment in MS,” published on…

May 30 was World MS Day 2020, an annual initiative for the MS community worldwide to unite. The Multiple Sclerosis International Federation created this global campaign to educate, raise awareness, and offer hope. Its free, online resources provide an abundance of helpful information. Fittingly, the theme for World MS…

How are you? These three words are ingrained in our vernacular. The question is often asked as a kind gesture, a greeting of sort. Are we truthful in our inquiry, and are we genuinely interested in how someone is faring? The intent of this week’s column is to explain the…

You’re chronically ill, super anxious, crazy shy, unconfident, and have no interviewing skills. To some, that recipe may sound like a terrible concoction to start a podcast. However, for me, I knew it was something I had to do. I had to share…

Air Pollution of Urban Life Raises MS Risk, Study from Italy Suggests I grew up in New York City. It’s hard to get more urban than that. There weren’t many factories spewing pollution, but there certainly were a lot of cars, trucks, and buses, and I inhaled more than…

It was 4 a.m. and a crisis was brewing. I knew that this time, I’d be a nincompoop if I tried to deal with the situation myself, as I’d faced spectacular failures recently with the poop bit. I was still groggy from having taken diazepam to deal with my…

As I sit down to write this week’s column, it’s hard for me to concentrate. I’d planned to write about new MS mobile apps, but I can’t get my brain to focus on the task. I’ve been bragging about how I’ve been feeling sharper and able to concentrate better the…