What makes you happy ?

A year ago August Jacq met the Consultant Neurologist and it was “agreed” that she come off the interferon-b. It was intended for relapsing-remitting MS and the Consultant certainly felt she had come away from r-r and probably to secondary. Jacq says it was “agreed” but he was the person with the knowledge so I feel that in the end the decision was actually his.
From that month the decline has been steady as I’m sure I’ve written about before several times. Last month it got so bad that she agreed to go on steroids. Our new GP’s eyes popped out on stalks when he saw the dose on the monitor – it’s 500mg a day for 5 days. The MS nurse had said that if the steroids produced an improvement then it was a relapse, and if not it was not. Guess what? She has improved. So that means that this last episode along with others in the last year could have been relapses and not just the steady deterioration. Of course relapses make things worse anywhere because of the continuing damage but the up/down does make it seem like r-r.
And the MS nurse said it would be r-r. Interferon-b is for r-r. So Jacq has an appt next month with the Consultant and she has already phoned to say she wants to go back on Interferon. She does not want to discuss it. She knows how she feels and she is not asking, she wants. If the Consultant does, good. If he does not….. and I do not think he will agree…… then it will become interesting. Libelous here certainly.

This isn’t a broken bone, or an infection, or a question of mental capacity. They don’t know what causes MS, they have no firm treatments for MS, it’s just research and more research. So the treatments they do have – such as Interferon – should be the choice of the patient barring significant medical contra-indications.

We shall see.