As you might imagine, I’ve been looking into what kind of treatments are available for MS. There are two different fronts when it comes to treating MS. There are things to treat the symptoms and then there are things that try to prevent relapses. Most of the effort and most of what is out there for MS patients is in the latter category.
I have problems with those types of things for several reasons. The shots that are used to prevent relapses are hideously expensive and have various side effects. Very frequently, they stop working or don’t work for a particular person. I’ve also wondered how you would know if they work at all. I mean, it’s easy to tell when they aren’t working, but it isn’t possible to know if they are. All of this is a bit moot since I don’t seem to have the relapsing type, those shots won’t work for me.
When it comes to treating the effects of MS there is very little that modern medicine has to offer. There are some anti-spaticity drugs and pain killers and that’s about it. There are some things that anecdotally have some effects. Things like acupuncture, diet, and yoga have their adherents. Another option is marijuana. There are many people that swear that it helps with pain, spasticity, and some even claim that it prevents relapses. Along with those positives, there are very few side effects and it is cheap! It’s really easy to grow too. The one downside is that it is illegal in most places.
Sigh.
The good news is that there is a lot of promise with the new field of stem cell research. More on that in the next post.