Tag: treatment

#GOOB

Yesterday was a really busy day for me!

Lots of people chatting with me about the MS news headlines

‘Miraculous Stem cell treatment’

Such brilliant news but I really don’t want people being misguided into thinking its a cure, I’ve attached a link to what the MS Society have to say

Getting the facts behind ‘miraculous’ stem cell treatment headlines

http://www.mssociety.org.uk/ms-research/research-blog/2015/03/getting-facts-behind-miraculous-stem-cell-treatment-headlines


 

 

Believe it or not, that’s not my main reason for writing this blog today!

 

So, I’ll get back to #GOOB

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My day started as normal as any would. Knowing in my mind what I had planned for the day, I sat down with my breakfast and my iPad and started checking my notifications I had received the night before.

The first notification I saw was from a close friend ‘Toni’ telling me to turn ITV on. Then another message came through from my Dad telling me that the ‘Good Morning Britain’ show on ITV were about to interview a lady that had undergone Stem cell treatment for her MS and I should put the TV on. As soon as I read this the home phone started to ring! It was my friend ‘Toni’ checking I had received the message about turning the TV on.

Click on this link to watch the video clip
Good Morning Britain ‘Holly Drewry’ interview about multiple sclerosis stem cell treatment walk

That’s when my day started to get really busy!

Social media sites started to buzz with the talk of this ‘wonder cure’ Friends were asking me about it, I said the same to them as what i started this blog with….

‘Miraculous Stem cell treatment’

Such brilliant news but I really don’t want people being misguided into thinking its a cure, I’ve attached a link to what the MS Society have to say

Getting the facts behind ‘miraculous’ stem cell treatment headlines

http://www.mssociety.org.uk/ms-research/research-blog/2015/03/getting-facts-behind-miraculous-stem-cell-treatment-headlines


 

 

 

I know I have just repeated the article from the beginning of the blog but I do feel this is a very important message to get across.

Another topic that I was involved with on Facebook was about a photo that had been added to the group ‘Nuneaton memories’ It was an old photo of my families health food and ethnic fashion shop ‘Way Of Life’ before the business was sold in 2000.
I’ve decided after seeing all the lovely comments about ‘Way Of Life’ that I am going to start a new project. I’m going to write about the business from when it started as a market stall in the early 80’s to the very last day! If I can find photos then I shall add those as well.
If my long-term memory ever fails me like my short-term does then I’ll have a forever memory in my new project!

It was whilst chatting about the family shop, the MS news and researching it in more depth that I realised the time! 12:15!
I was going back to a Pilates class after not going to it or any other fitness classes including the Gym for over a week due to sickness! You can imagine how excited I was to be able to go back!

12:15 I was still in my PJ’s, hadn’t had any lunch and hadn’t checked through my gym bag to make sure everything was in there that I needed! You know like the important things!
I got myself some lunch and mistakenly continued with the social media conversations! This is always a big mistake as I do tend to get lost in them!

13:00 the phone rang, it was my partner calling me whilst on her lunch as she does everyday. I explained I wasn’t dressed for Pilates & at the same time I looked at the clock, 1pm! It was 1pm and the only thing I had done in 45 minutes was have lunch! Oh dear! This was the time I should have left to make sure I arrived at the leisure centre to meet my friend and be in time for the Pilates class.

Now for anyone that knows me personally you will know how stressed I get when I have to be anywhere for appointments, it’s all down to the time restrictions. This is also the case for classes, so Pilates, I leave early to allow for any traffic delays, Aqua fit is further away so I leave extra early and usually end up sitting in my car for ages!

So imagine how I was! I always say I’m getting ‘in a flap’ Well, if I was in any more of a flap my feet would have left the floor!
I finished the phone call with my partner and rushed around like I was on fire! I always think that the more you rush the slower you are as you make more mistakes! When I’m in a flap I never think to slow down & remember this!

I got my self ready, sorted the dogs and grabbed my gym bag… oh no! My membership card that I need to enter the gym, wasn’t where it normally is! I hadn’t checked when I first got up!
I emptied all my bags & different purses looking for my card. I couldn’t find it anywhere!

13:25 The Pilates class starts at 13:30! I had 5 minutes to get to the leisure centre which is easily a 10 minute drive without traffic! This was so not me! I’m like Sheldon from ‘The Big Bang Theory’ when it comes to situations like this! How could I get there and to the class in time! Knowing it was impossible I still continued to make my way out of our Bungalow!

13:30 It always happens when you’re in a rush, the refuge bin collectors where on their routes which just happened to be the same direction that I was going! Well, if I had no chance of getting there in time 5 minutes ago then I was most definitely going to be late! I remember thinking, what do I do? This was a whole new experience to me, remember ‘I am Sheldon’ shall I pull over & phone the leisure centre so I don’t get charged for not turning up?
I carried on! Again a new experience, not phoning to tell them about my lateness! What a rebel!

13:40 I finally arrived in the leisure centre car park! 10 minutes late! I’m never late for anything! I felt like crying, I was already feeling sensitive because of going down memory lane earlier on with the comments about our old shop.
My friend’s car was there, she must have gone straight in.
I stood at the ticket machine for the car parking & felt my eyes well up! Something incredible happened next, I started to asses the situation. For the first time I actually changed my thoughts from feeling angry with myself to deciding how I could make better this situation. I was definitely too late for the class, I wouldn’t be joining in with Pilates today, that was for sure. I still had to go in to the centre to explain about being late, I had to apologize at the very least plus I needed a new gym card after losing the original! I may even have to pay for the session (I am a member so the cost of session is all in with my monthly charge. Unless you fail to attend the class without warning)
Decided then, I would go inside! I got my car park ticket and made my way into the centre all the time thinking about Shift.ms

13:45 Yep I really was late, I explained to the lady at reception that I was late and I needed a new card. She offered for me to carry on into the class at which I declined, the class was by now 15  minutes into the session. Me walking in so late would have been very distracting, something I know I wouldn’t appreciate if it happened to me.
The receptionist said I wouldn’t have to pay and she didn’t charge me for a new card either *hush-hush*

 

This is when #GOOB happened!

 

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I thanked the lady on reception, what a lovely kind thing to do for me. I then asked her if the card was active? It was, perfect!

I then made my way up the stairs and into the changing room to put my bag in a locker. I then left the changing room, straight past the dance hall where Pilates was and into the gym!
I spent 45 minutes in the gym working on my balance and then made my way back to my car where I sat and waited for my friend to come out.

When I saw ‘Mummy Crispie’ walk towards the car, the look on her face was just brilliant! She was obviously confused about why I was sitting in my car and hadn’t gone into Pilates. I explained everything to her and we sat chatting for at least 20-30 minutes. When I say we ‘sat chatting’, Crispie was in her car with window down & I was in my car with window down of course. This really tickled me and kept me smiling during the journey home.
(Crispie is a nickname for my friend Christine who I have known since I was 4! She is my best friends Mum!)

Crispie seemed really impressed when I told her I went into the gym instead. I felt really proud of myself!

This was definitely my #GOOB! Making Good Out Of Bad!

 

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Thank you Shift.ms for reminding me that it only takes a small change to the way you think to make

good out of a bad moment

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Here are some visuals from the Shift.ms web page that I really like and help me to stay positive…

Just change the Yoga for Pilates and this is perfect for me!

I have done this but i think I may to look at it again, maybe that way I won’t be late in future!

Shift.ms aims to create a positive, enabling community for MSers which empowers them to acknowledge their MS, rethink how to achieve their ambitions and get on with their lives.

Innovative research tool pinpoints potential therapies for multiple sclerosis

Shared on Facebook yesterday by an inspirational Mega Special lady & 5 x Paralympic medalist! Stephanie Millward.

I haven’t read this yet but I bet it is great news! Anything that will repair the nervous system must be amazing for us!!!

 

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2014-07-tool-potential-therapies-multiple-sclerosis.html

Innovative research tool pinpoints potential therapies for multiple sclerosis

by Pete Farley
multiple sclerosis
Demyelination by MS. The CD68 colored tissue shows several macrophages in the area of the lesion. Original scale 1:100. Credit: Marvin 101/Wikipedia
Using a novel screening platform to rapidly evaluate the cellular effects of 1,000 chemical compounds, a team led by UC San Francisco scientists has identified eight drugs that may stimulate nervous system repair in multiple sclerosis (MS).

All eight compounds have previously been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of other conditions. One of the most promising agents is an antihistamine, though the scientists caution that MS patients should not use the drug until clinical trials have established whether it can safely and effectively treat MS, and if it does, what the proper dosages and treatment regimens would be. Because of the drug’s emergence as a clear front-runner in the new study, a Phase 2 clinical trial to evaluate its effectiveness in MS is already underway at UCSF.

“A major unmet need in the development of therapeutics for repair in MS has been the ability to screen compounds in a high-throughput manner,” said Jonah Chan, PhD, the Debbie and Andy Rachleff Distinguished Professor of Neurology at UCSF and senior author of the new study. “Through a great deal of serendipity, combined with the hard work of outstanding students and colleagues, we have been able to address this need, and I am happy that we are already testing one compound in the clinic.”

The new research was published online July 6, 2014 in Nature Medicine.

The decision to focus on compounds already approved by the FDA was driven by study co-author Stephen L. Hauser, MD, the Robert A. Fishman Professor and chair of the Department of Neurology at UCSF. As founder and director of UCSF’s interdisciplinary MS Research Group, Hauser has championed efforts to translate insights from basic neuroscience research into new therapies as quickly as possible. The new study is an exemplar of that strategy: only 14 months have elapsed since the team performed the first drug screen, and the Phase 2 trial is already at its halfway point.

Co-author Ari Green, MD, Debbie and Andy Rachleff Distinguished Professor of Neurology, is principal investigator on the Phase 2 trial at UCSF, which is known as the ReBUILD trial. According to Green, the trial was expedited by the FDA’s granting of a New Drug Application exemption, which allows clinical researchers to study drugs in conditions for which they were not originally approved. The trial is still enrolling MS patients and is expected to be completed by the end of 2014.

In MS, the immune system goes awry and attacks myelin, a fatty sheath covering the thin nerve-cell extensions called axons that transmit signals in the brain. Much like the plastic covering on electrical wiring, myelin provides insulation that is crucial to quick, efficient communication among neurons. Poor neural conduction leads to the range of progressively worsening symptoms of MS. Myelin degeneration damages axons and ultimately causes nerve cells to die off.

Myelin is formed by specialized cells called oligodendrocytes, which wrap themselves around axons in multiple layers. This wrapping process, known as myelination, has generally been studied in combined cultures of neurons and oligodendrocytes, and until recently it was widely believed that axons provide some chemical signal to oligodendrocytes that initiates myelination.

But in 2012, Chan and colleagues published studies showing that oligodendrocytes will myelinate synthetic “nanofibers” of approximately the same diameter as axons. Though this work showed that it was possible to study myelination in oligodendrocytes alone, the configuration of the fibers used in the experiments made it difficult to automate the detection and quantification of myelination, which are essential criteria to efficiently screen drugs that might stimulate remyelination to treat MS.

To address these problems, Chan’s research group designed a new system based around precisely fabricated conical “micropillars.” Each micropillar is only a few thousandths of an inch thick at its base, and 10,000 of them can fit within a 5-millimeter-square “well.” Chan’s team created plates of 96 micropillar wells and loaded up each well with 40,000 oligodendrocyte precursor cells (OPCs), the cells from which oligodendrocytes are derived in the brain and spinal cord.

OPCs do not always differentiate into myelin-forming oligodendrocytes, so the research team tagged the cells with fluorescent markers that would glow green if the cells remained OPCs, and glow red if they had become oligodendrocytes.

The group then systematically applied 1,000 compounds from a library of FDA-approved drugs to the wells with an automated screening platform. Using a confocal microscope to view the slides from below, the researchers could quickly determine from the color of the cells if they had differentiated into oligodendrocytes, and could also calculate how thoroughly any oligodendrocytes had wrapped the micropillars—from beneath the micropillars, myelination is seen in cross-section, and quantifying it is much like counting tree rings.

In 2013, Chan was the inaugural winner of the Barancik Prize for Innovation in MS Research from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society for his work on the new platform, which is known as BIMA (Binary Indicant for Myelination Using Micropillar Arrays).

The vast majority of the compounds tested with the BIMA platform in the new study killed the OPCs or were not beneficial to their development, and many prompted the OPCs to proliferate without transforming to oligodendrocytes. But eight drugs stood out on two counts: they successfully prompted OPCs to differentiate into oligodendrocytes, and the resulting  robustly wrapped the micropillars with layers of myelin.

Remarkably, all eight drugs share a common mechanism of action: they each block a particular receptor—called the muscarinic receptor—on a subset of OPCs that respond to the neurotransmitter acetylcholine.

The antihistamine clemastine was the most effective of all 1,000 compounds tested in promoting both oligodendrocyte production and myelination. The drug exerts some of its anti-allergy effects by blocking the actions of histamine in mucous membranes, but the drug also has an “off-target” effect, blocking muscarinic receptors in the brain and elsewhere in the body.

“It is imperative that we exploit and utilize the power of our screening platform to search for additional compounds, but another next step is to identify the receptor targets of these anti-muscarinic drugs so we can develop therapeutic compounds with minimal side effects,” said Chan. “There are five different muscarinic receptors expressed in the nervous system, and a major question is whether the effects we observed are the result of blocking a single receptor or a combination of multiple receptors. Understanding the molecular mechanisms responsible for oligodendrocyte differentiation and myelination will provide valuable insight into the repair process and guide the development of new effective therapeutics for remyelination.”

 Explore further: ‘Master switch’ for myelination in human brain stem cells is identified

More information: Micropillar arrays as a high-throughput screening platform for therapeutics in multiple sclerosis, Nature Medicine, www.nature.com/nm/journal/vaop… nt/full/nm.3618.html

 

Statins in neurological disorders: an overview and update

 

Shared on Facebook yesterday by an inspirational Mega Special lady & 5 x Paralympic medalist! Stephanie Millward.

This is pretty interesting from an MS point of view. They seem to be able to control/reduce new lesions!!

 

http://www.msif.org/global-ms-research/latest-ms-research-news/statins-in-neurological-disorders-an-overview-and-update.aspx

Thank you NHS!

NHS

We all have something to thank the NHS for!

Mine is the drugs that I’m on for my MS!

Its been a year since my last little relapse!

That’s some going for saying I used to have around one a month before being put on ‘Tysabri’ my Wonder drug!

Continue reading “Thank you NHS!” →

A critical review of the fundamental therapeutic effects of glatiramer acetate

 

Shared on Facebook yesterday by an inspirational Mega Special lady & 5 x Paralympic medalist!
Stephanie Millward.

This is so interesting from an MS point of view. It is more proof that people are trying their hardest to understand MS and therefore to find the Cure or at least a good treatment for us!

http://msif.org/global-ms-research/latest-ms-research-news/a-critical-review-of-the-fundamental-therapeutic-effects-of-glatiramer-acetate.aspx