December 11, 2020 Columns by John Connor ‘Well, This Could Be the Last Time, I Don’t Know!’ Don’t be so overdramatic, my wife always tells me. But as I’ve spent 30 years of my life as a pseudo-luvvie, I’ve earned the right to have a good and proper flounce if I want one. It was a weekend of severe illness. A urinary tract infection (UTI) poleaxed…
October 30, 2020 Columns by John Connor The Long and Winding Road to My Urologist’s Door Last week’s column, “The Loneliness of the Long-distance UTI Patient,” dealt with my dive into the Eastern (bloc) world of bacteriophages. It would be a fun exercise (and boy, do I need some exercise) to dive into the history of the discovery of bacteriophages and antibiotics. Both fight…
October 23, 2020 Columns by John Connor The Loneliness of the Long-distance UTI Patient When did I first become aware of the word “phage”? “Star Trek,” of course! It was an episode about a disease that was destroying a race somewhere in the Delta Quadrant. (OK, possibly ā even I fade out in the Nerdverse. But it definitely was in the “Voyager” series.)…
August 24, 2020 Columns by Ed Tobias MS News That Caught My Eye Last Week: Kesimpta, Ocrevus and Chickenpox, Generic Tecfidera, UTIs FDA Approves Kesimpta, B-cell Targeting Therapy for Relapsing MS The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval of Kesimpta (ofatumumab) this month is a pretty big deal. Kesimpta is a once-a-month injectable disease-modifying therapy. There’s nothing else like it, because Kesimpta targets B-cells in the immune system. Until now, only…
February 3, 2020 Columns by Ed Tobias MS News that Caught My Eye Last Week: Epstein-Barr, UTI Factors, New Myelin Imaging Agent, Nerve Impulses and Demyelination Epstein-Barr Virus and Certain Genes Interact in Ways That Can Promote MS, Study Finds Much has been written over the years about a possible connection between the Epstein-Barr virus and multiple sclerosis. Here’s further evidence of a link that has to do with how particular genes interact with the…
January 3, 2020 Columns by John Connor Keep Taking the Tablets What did I write about last New Year’s? As usual, it was related to a bodily function: urinary tract infections (UTIs). Then, readers almost unanimously recommended methenamine hippurate. I had tried several times to get the medication prescribed. Then, a few months ago, my local multiple sclerosis…
October 18, 2019 Columns by John Connor This Week, I Feel Like I’m Growing Up Again As I sit down (nothing unusual there ā all I do these days is sit down!) and write this, I’m 62 years and one day old. On Saturday morning, it felt like I still had a few days to go before I reached the heady height of a 2-year-old. I’m…
August 2, 2019 Columns by John Connor Hell Week: Record Heat Teams Up with a Sneaky Infection Last Thursday was the hottest day ever recorded in U.K. history at 101.6 degrees F.Ā Heat sensitivity is enough to reduce me to the puddle I described last week. But it doesn’t explain the shaking of my body and the extreme pain in my right arm Thursday night. Not…
July 23, 2019 Columns by Ed Tobias Urinary Tract Infections Are Getting Harder to Treat Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are a problem for a significant number of people with multiple sclerosis (MS). As many as three in 10 may wind up needing treatment for one. So, I was concerned when I read a New York Times article reporting that UTIs are becoming harder…
March 29, 2019 Columns by Ed Tobias Some Thoughts About Controlling Your MS Bladder There are two types of people with MS: Those who have bladder problems and those who will have them. That may be an oversimplification but Iād be willing to bet that you, like me, have had that gotta-gotta-go problem too many times to count. Sometimes you make it…
January 4, 2019 Columns by John Connor What a Relief! New year, new beginnings ā not a chance. Theresa May still has Brexit as her waking and sleeping nightmare, and I’m still battling urinary tract infections (UTIs). Over the last few years, I’ve probably written about this more than anything else; it’s the one thing the medical establishment…
June 1, 2018 Columns by John Connor Dear Diary I never kept a diary.Ā I did sometimes muse about itĀ but reckoned I’d never become famous enough for one to be useful. Well, at least in that I was right. Until the rise of the smartphone, anniversaries and birthdays were flagged by my oldest son, who has the gift…
April 12, 2018 Columns by Tamara Sellman The MS Alphabet: UTI, Vertigo, White Matter Lesions, and Other ‘U’ Through ‘Z’ Terms Editorās note: Tamara Sellman continues her series on the “MS alphabet” with this column referencing terms starting with the letters “U” through “Z.” This is the last post in this series.Ā Symptoms of MS Uhthoff’s phenomenon People with MS are often heat-sensitive and experience overheating due to…