Had my three month check-up with my neurologist this morning. Everything is well. I am having another set of MRI's done this Sunday (12/13) since it has been a couple of years since my first ones. The MRI's will be: of the brain w/o contrast and then of my cervical spine with and w/o contrast. The contrast agent is the gadolinium I had before. We will see if things have changed or whatnot after the MRIs are done - and back into the doctor 1/6/10.
I asked my neurologist about the pill that is to be reviewed next month for MS. She said that pill is not something she would recommend for me for a few reasons: two new (like a car, it's smart to wait until a new car model has been out a while so any kinks that may arise can been ironed out); this pill more for the more progressive forms of MS; and she doesn't want to mess with what is working out so well for me. Why mess with something that works, right?!
I had my H1N1 vaccination last weekend. The hospital Casey works at, William Beaumont in Royal Oak was offering a free H1N1 vaccination clinic so why not take advantage of that?! :) The vaccination's syringe needle gauge (23 or 24) sure was larger than my Copaxone syringe needle (29) but I am so use to needles now it wasn't a biggie. I cannot believe I am saying that.
Anyway, I will let you know the results of the MRIs when I know them.
ScienceDaily (Aug. 12, 2009) — A new experimental treatment for multiple sclerosis (MS) completely reverses the devastating autoimmune disorder in mice, and might work exactly the same way in humans, say researchers at the Jewish General Hospital Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research and McGill University in Montreal.
MS is an autoimmune disease in which the body's own immune response attacks the central nervous system, almost as if the body had become allergic to itself, leading to progressive physical and cognitive disability.
The new treatment, appropriately named GIFT15, puts MS into remission by suppressing the immune response. This means it might also be effective against other autoimmune disorders like Crohn's disease, lupus and arthritis, the researchers said, and could theoretically also control immune responses in organ transplant patients. Moreover, unlike earlier immune-suppressing therapies which rely on chemical pharmaceuticals, this approach is a personalized form of cellular therapy which utilizes the body's own cells to suppress immunity in a much more targeted way.
GIFT15 was discovered by a team led by Dr. Jacques Galipeau of the JGH Lady Davis Institute and McGill's Faculty of Medicine. The results were published August 9 in the prestigious journal Nature Medicine.
GIFT15 is composed of two proteins, GSM-CSF and interleukin-15, fused together artificially in the lab. Under normal circumstances, the individual proteins usually act to stimulate the immune system, but in their fused form, the equation reverses itself.
"You know those mythical animals that have the head of an eagle and the body of a lion? They're called chimeras. In a lyrical sense, that's what we've created," said Galipeau, a world-renowned expert in cell regeneration affiliated with the Segal Cancer Centre at the Jewish General and McGill's Centre for Translational Research. "GIFT15 is a new protein hormone composed of two distinct proteins, and when they're stuck together they lead to a completely unexpected biological effect."
This effect, explained Galipeau, converts B-cells -- a common form of white blood cell normally involved in immune response -- into powerful immune-suppressive cells. Unlike their better-known cousins, T-cells, naturally-occurring immune-suppressing B-cells are almost unknown in nature and the notion of using them to control immunity is very new.
"GIFT15 can take your normal, run-of-the-mill B-cells and convert them -- in a Superman or Jekyll -Hyde sort of way -- into these super-powerful B-regulatory cells," Galipeau explained. "We can do that in a petri dish. We took normal B-cells from mice, and sprinkled GIFT15 on them, which led to this Jekyll and Hyde effect.
"And when we gave them back intravenously to mice ill with multiple sclerosis, the disease went away."
MS must be caught in its earliest stages, Galipeau cautioned, and clinical studies are needed to test the treatment's efficacy and safety in humans. No significant side-effects showed up in the mice, he said, and the treatment was fully effective with a single dose.
"It's easy to collect B-cells from a patient," he added. "It's just like donating blood. We purify them in the lab, treat them with GIFT15 in a petri dish, and give them back to the patient. That's what we did in mice, and that's what we believe we could do in people. It would be very easy to take the next step, it's just a question of finding the financial resources and partnerships to make this a reality."
Source:
- http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/090811143725.htm
Thank you to my friend, Amanda, for alerting me to this article. This would be even better than an oral pill to eliminate the syringe administration of medicine. :) Technology and science is a surprising and every changing thing - I am always keeping my fingers crosses for good news!
