April 25, 2017 Columns by Ed Tobias MS, Wheelchairs, Walkers and Guns: Are They Safe Together? When I began writing about multiple sclerosis, I never imagined that, one day, I’d be writing a column about guns. But here I am, staring right into that barrel. The other day as I cruised around MS…
April 19, 2017 Columns by Ed Tobias A Rap Reply for a Guy Who Thinks MS is Too Perplexin’ I’m an old guy, and it’s been a looonnnggg time since I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. This, however, is not the case with BJ Baker. BJ is in his late 20s, and was having a very…
April 11, 2017 Columns by Ed Tobias Need Help Paying for Your MS Drug? With last month’s approval of the multiple sclerosis drug Ocrevus, I’ve again heard the plea “But how can I afford it?” Ocrevus carries a price tag of about $65,000 a year. That’s not high compared to…
April 7, 2017 Columns by Ed Tobias Ocrevus: Should I Switch? There was much fanfare when the multiple sclerosis drug Ocrevus (ocrelizumab) finally was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration last week. Perhaps a little too much fanfare? For example, a story broadcast on the NBC…
April 4, 2017 Columns by Ed Tobias Ampyra: A Generic for the MS ‘Walking Drug’ Wins a Round in Court Ampyra is marketed as the only multiple sclerosis (MS) drug that is designed to increase an MS patient’s walking speed. Clinical studies show that patients who use the drug walk as much as 20 percent faster.
March 31, 2017 Columns by Ed Tobias Scooters: Don’t Let Pride Block Your Path to Independence To scoot or not to scoot? Is is better to drag your legs around for as long as you can, or to give in and get yourself a set of electric wheels? That decision prompted the following vent…
March 28, 2017 Columns by Ed Tobias My MS Is Getting to Be a Pain, Literally For most of the 36 years since I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis I’ve not been bothered by pain. Just lucky, I guess. Until last month. Suddenly, I’ve developed pain in both hips and I don’t know why. The…
March 24, 2017 Columns by Ed Tobias Using Tattoo Art to Make a Statement About MS There won’t be a lot of my words in this column but there will be lot of pictures. The column is devoted to some very personal multiple sclerosis art: Tattoos. Most of these “tats” contain an orange ribbon,…
March 21, 2017 Columns by Ed Tobias Improving the Odds of Going the Way You Want to Go Sooner or later we’re all going to die. We may not want to think about it, but it’s important that we do, especially those of us with a chronic disease such as multiple sclerosis. Though…
March 17, 2017 Columns by Ed Tobias Alexa, Tell Me About MS Alexa, Amazon’s little voice-activated information box, has just received a multiple sclerosis infusion. As part of MS Awareness Month, fifty facts about MS have been loaded into Alexa’s memory. If a user says “Alexa, start MS Awareness” the…
March 14, 2017 Columns by Ed Tobias Is Your Doctor’s Business Interfering With Your Treatment? One of my favorite movie lines appears in “Jerry Maguire.” Sports-agent Maguire is trying to convince one of his football-player clients to stay with him and the client keeps insisting: “Show me the money.” I got to thinking…
March 10, 2017 Columns by Ed Tobias MS Advocates Hope Better Data Will Mean Better Care The practice of collecting data about how we MS patients go about living our lives, and then using that data to improve our patient care, seems to be gathering steam. In the European Union a project called…
March 7, 2017 Columns by Ed Tobias Know Your MS Treatment Options and Minimize Your Regrets A few weeks ago I wrote a column titled, “Why Can’t Some MS Docs Communicate With Their Patients?” It’s very unlikely that two doctors from the Cleveland Clinic — Mikkael A. Sekeres and Timothy D. Gilligan — read…
March 3, 2017 Columns by Ed Tobias Improving ‘Workability’ for MS Patients: A European Point of View You probably talk about multiple sclerosis (MS) symptoms, drugs and therapies when you meet with your neurologist, but I’ll bet that most people don’t talk very much about working. Being able to work, and continuing to hold…
February 28, 2017 Columns by Ed Tobias FAQs About the Bioness ‘L300 Go’ for Foot Drop Earlier this month Bioness announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had cleared its new “L300 Go” functional electronic stimulator (FES). It’s an upgrade of the original “L300” that I’ve been using for more…
February 24, 2017 Columns by Ed Tobias Stimulating Neurons to Help with Problem-Solving One of the most troubling symptoms of multiple sclerosis, especially for those of us who are still working, is “brain fog” — not being able to concentrate … not feeling “sharp” when working on a task or solving…
February 21, 2017 Columns by Ed Tobias I Have MS. Do I Tell the Kids? It’s a question that nearly every MS patient faces. When do I tell my children about my multiple sclerosis, and what’s the best way to do it? In early January I wrote a column about sharing an…
February 17, 2017 Columns by Ed Tobias MS Drug Costs: The Elephant in the Examination Room A lot of factors go into our decisions when we select the drug we’re going to use to fight our multiple sclerosis. How well will it work? What are the possible side effects and how serious could they be?…
February 14, 2017 Columns by Ed Tobias Stem Cell Treatment for MS: Can’t We Move Any Faster? There is some good news about stem cell therapy. A just-published study concludes that one form of human stem cell therapy is more effective at treating multiple sclerosis than the best of the MS medications being…
February 10, 2017 Columns by Ed Tobias Why Can’t Some MS Docs Communicate with Their Patients? Browsing through some multiple sclerosis Facebook groups the other day I was reminded of the line from the 1967 movie Cool Hand Luke: “What we have here is a failure to communicate.” These posts jumped out at me:…
April 15, 2024 Columns by Leigh Anne Nelson What does ‘delicate balance’ mean in my life with multiple sclerosis?