The MS Wire

News, info and tips for living with multiple sclerosis

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I’m Giving Three MS Drugs a Second Chance

MS drugs

Over the many years I’ve lived with multiple sclerosis I’ve used several MS drugs to treat my symptoms. Some have helped, some haven’t, and some worked at first but then lost their efficacy. I recently returned to three MS drugs that I’d stopped using for various reasons. Here’s why. Provigil Provigil (modafinil) is a medication that reduces fatigue, one of my most troubling symptoms. For many years I used modafinil,…Continue Reading

She Told the Recruiter About Her Chronic Illness and She Got the Job

chronic illness disclosure

It’s a decision most of us with a chronic illness have to make sooner or later: When do we disclose our illness, and to whom, and how do we do it? Thirty-one-year-old Katie Coleman faced that decision not long ago. Coleman has stage 4 kidney cancer and, in April, she was being interviewed for a software developer’s job she wanted. To tell or not to tell, that was the question.…Continue Reading

Medical Marijuana for MS Pain – Yes or No?

Medical marijuana symbol

Will your doctor approve a medical marijuana (MMJ) card for you? Two of mine will and one won’t. The doctor who won’t, a primary care physician who works within a medical group, told me it’s the group’s policy. The problem, she explained, is that there are no guidelines. How do you know what to prescribe if you can’t determine the marijuana’s potency or understand how the balance between THC and…Continue Reading

Florida to Maryland With no (Bladder) Accidents

Home with no bladder accidents

I’m back in Maryland. After two days — 16 hours of it spent on the road — and 1,104 miles, not a single accident. My bladder control meds must’ve worked. The semiannual trip my wife and I take between Florida’s southwest coast and the suburbs of Washington, D.C. is never easy, particularly because we travel with a cat and a dog. Getting in and out of hotels with two pets,…Continue Reading

Guess What? Your Medical Debt May be Cancelled.

erasing medical debg

It may sound like a joke or a scam, but there’s a nonprofit organization called RIP Medical Debt that might pay off your medical debt. Yep, all of it. According to the organization’s website, RIP Medical Debt has paid off more than $6.7 billion of other people’s medical bills over the past eight years. Healthcare costs take a big chunk out of people’s budgets. That’s particularly true for people being…Continue Reading

Good News for MS Folks. NIH Joins Search for EBV Vaccine.

EBV vaccine

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is joining the search for a vaccine to attack the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV). This is a big deal for people with multiple sclerosis, because carrying the virus is thought to play a significant role in the development of MS. In fact, research published earlier this year by Harvard scientists concludes that a previous EBV infection may increase a person’s MS risk by 32 times.…Continue Reading

Which of Your MS Symptoms Came First?

What was the first of the MS symptoms you noticed? I’m asking this because of a new podcast that a friend is producing…but more about that later. My first symptom — the one that made me realize something was really wrong — was my inability to squeeze the toothpaste tube with my left hand one morning. Of course, there were earlier hints of trouble. I was unusually tired while attending…Continue Reading

Wow, Multiple Sclerosis is Expensive

multiple sclerosis expenses

I always knew that living with multiple sclerosis (MS) was super-expensive, but a new study is a real eye-opener. The study, published in the journal Neurology, puts the annual tab for MS in the U.S. at $85.4 billion in 2019. Most of that amount, $63.3 billion, comes from direct medical costs — things like disease-modifying therapy (DMT) infusions at clinics ($6.7 billion), outpatient care ($5.5 billion), and prescription medications ($37.9…Continue Reading