Findings from the longest study to date on MS therapies are being used to support the earliest possible intervention with Avonex (a type of interferon). The central premise of the article of course is absolutely correct, one should start treatment of a chronic disease as soon as possible as it becomes progressively more difficult to treat the longer one holds off on treatment.
However, I have major disagreements with the recommended treatment. Someone please help me understand why ANYONE would use a drug that costs $1,200 per month, yes, you heard me correctly, $1,200 per month, that in no way. shape or form treats the cause of the disease? Ahh, I heard someone in the back speak up, you say corporate drug company greed--that sure sounds right to me.
I found this article particularly annoying as my last patient yesterday was someone I first saw several months ago who I took off of Avonex the very first day he came to see me. He is a 33-year-old architect who was a former athlete with plenty of vitality. He had MS for about five years and had the whole gamut of symptoms--insomnia, severe fatigue, weakness in his legs, bowel problems, headaches and fevers.
Like nearly all severe chronic disease cases I see, his event started shortly after a severe emotional trauma occurred in his life (four close friends died and he broke up his engagement). So when he came in I had him stop the Avonex immediately as I don't believe that there is any indications at all to ever use this drug. He was afraid to do this but reluctantly complied. He followed a raw-food, metabolically appropriate, diet and received plenty of energetic emotional treatment. Over the next few weeks 10 of his 12 initial symptoms all but disappeared and the remaining two improved. He hadn?t felt so good in years and was actually thinking about quitting his job as an architect to go into the health field.
If he had waited a few more years and came in a wheel chair, I suspect it may not have been possible to obtain the same results. At some point the damage does become irreversible. Prior to my application of nutritional typing and effective emotional interventions, it was uncommon to see these types of improvements with MS, but now I am really shocked if we don't see them. Fortunately, I am seeing these types of improvements quite regularly now in the MS patients we are treating.
For more information on MS treatments please see my last blog post on MS
Science Blog September 22, 2003