Australian Women s Weekly
At the time, the newly qualified accountant hadn t given much thought to motherhood but while MS doesn t affect fertility, Adriana s doctors explained she would have to come off her medication during conception and pregnancy, which could lead to a relapse.
Full of trepidation, Adriana talked this over with her partner Mark. It broke my heart to think we might never have a baby, Adriana remembers. I told him it was my battle and he could leave me if he wanted.
But Mark, 37, who married Adriana in 2014, promised he d never leave her side.
With medication, the numbness and constant tingling stopped, but Adriana struggled with depression.
Monash University
A recent study by Monash University has highlighted the benefit for pregnant women with MS who continue with a disease modifying treatment during and after pregnancy.
Using data from the international MSBase registry, the findings published in Neurology, revealed that women with MS who continued to take natalizumab (Tysabri) through and after their pregnancy had a decrease in relapse rates by up to 89 per cent. In contrast, women with MS who stopped taking natalizumab (Tysabri) and another therapy, fingolimod (Gilenya), before conception had an increase in relapse rates.
Led by senior research fellow Dr Vilija Jokubaitis from the department of neuroscience at Monash Central Clinical School, the study is the first to show how well the disease can be controlled through and after pregnancy if women are appropriately managed on this therapy.
Major longitudinal study launched to assess changes in quality-of-life outcomes for patients prescribed medicinal cannabis
Lead researcher Associate Professor Claudia Rutherford. Top of page: Flowering cannabis credit My 450 Tours, Wikimedia Commons.
Researchers at the University of Sydney have launched The QUality of life Evaluation STudy (The QUEST Initiative), a wide-ranging, longitudinal study for medicinal cannabis patients.
The QUEST Initiative aims to be one of the world’s largest studies examining quality of life outcomes in patients prescribed medicinal cannabis. The study aims to recruit at least 2,100 patients – the minimum sample size (number of recruited patients) calculated to achieve statistical relevance – by June 2021 with potential to extend this study internationally.
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A medical website’s headline screamed, “Breakthrough Multiple Sclerosis Vaccine Shows Impressive Results In Study.” The
New York Daily News joined in, highlighting a potential “breakthrough” vaccine. Other media outlets also were using similar adjectives earlier this month. Unfortunately, it’s normal media hype.
I suspect some of it was was encouraged because the company sponsoring the research is BioNTech, which helped to develop one of the COVID-19 vaccines. Now, the company is testing its mRNA vaccine model to see if it can be used to reduce the type of inflammation that destroys myelin.
As is typical in these cases, cheerleading by traditional media has generated a lot of social media buzz. People with MS have been sharing these stories and sounding a little like “The Little Engine That Could,” repeating, “I think I can, I think I can.”