Treatment

June 2nd, 2008 · No Comments

There are currently six treatment options for MS, also called disease modifying agents/drugs. Since MS researchers don’t like pills (or they just like to torture us), all six medications involved needles. Ok technically, they have not found a way to deliver the treatment that works as well as injections but there are clinical trials going on right now. The medications are:

Novantrone is kind of like chemotherapy and you can only be on it for 24 months total. It isn’t for me! Tysabri also has it’s problems and is a black box medication from the FDA. It has caused two deaths since first coming out. Those are both out.

Now, interferon is an immunosuppressant with some crappy side effects. Most people seem to get flu-like symptoms. The shots for these are either weekly, every couple days or every other day. That means feeling like crap weekly, every couple days or every other day. It sounds fun huh? The other concern I have involves virus filled coworkers. Since it is an immunosuppressant, can feel like I have the flu AND actually have the flu.

Copaxone is not interferon! It is a daily injection and has very few side effects. The main complaints involve the needle stick/injection site issues and 15-30 minute intense panic attack right after injection. They have an auto-injection thingybobber to help. They have had some very good research out lately:

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd today announced new results from the PreCISe study, which demonstrated that early treatment with COPAXONE^® (glatiramer acetate injection) significantly reduced the risk of developing clinically definite multiple sclerosis (CDMS) by 45 percent compared to placebo (hazard ratio 0.55, p=0.0001). These data were presented as late-breaking science at the 60^th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) in Chicago.

All of the medications are covered by insurance with either a 20 or 40 dollar copay for 90 days. So at this point, Copaxone is a clear winner. I much rather do a daily injection and have less side effects. That is an easy decision. With all the research I have done, it also seems like a good medication for my type of MS (first event). None the less, it is more of a guessing game as to which one might work for you. You just hope you guess right.

Now I just hope the doctor agrees (he is the one that told me to research my options though!). My appointment is on Friday where I have to do that stupid annoying vision test with the blinky lights and the mean Russian vision test lady. It should be fun.