Would You Consider the “Nuclear Option” as Your Multiple Sclerosis Treatment?

The very personal decision of which treatment to go on (if any) for multiple sclerosis comes down to rations; Cost-to-Benefit, Risk-to- Benefit, Quality of life-to-Benefit. It all depends on what “place” we are in our course of MS as to how far we may be willing to go with treatment. For those who are fighting an aggressive and ever-progressing form of MS, new information is begging to “leak” out may give hope, but the “risk” part of the equation may be high. We’ve reported on autologous stem cell treatment before. This procedure may be better known as a bone marrow-transplant, but a patient’s own bone marrow is harvested and then reintroduced after the immune system has been decimated. There have been two parallel branches of these studies; one which goes all the way in killing off the immune system and another that goes most of the way. It seems that, as research numbers are being reported, that the long-term positive effects of the big-dose chemo/radiation version has more sustained benefit. As American stem cell research was politically stunted in the in the first decade of this century, we have yet to see the promise many of us hoped from these little buggers. This has been a hot button topic in many of our discussions but owing to the fact that these current studies are being done on a patient’s own cells, let’s hope we can skip the rhetoric. I’ve a call in to a few people I know who have undergone treatment in these studies and hope to have an ...
Source: Life with MS - Category: Other Conditions Authors: Tags: MS treatment multiple sclerosis treatment stem cell treatment Source Type: blogs