8/5/2023 0 Comments Stem cell therapy for ms“What our treatments don’t do well is repair damage that has already happened,” she said. They also tend not to improve patients’ conditions. There’s not a one-size-fits-all, so some patients have to try several to see which one works best. “Now, it may be the only drug a patient ever takes or at least can be taken for a very long time (before it has to be changed),” she said. Most are short-term solutions that have to be changed intermittently, but Willis said newer drugs are showing more long-term promise. market for MS, Willis said, five times the number there were 11 years ago. There are 25 disease-modifying medications on the U.S. The problem is many people aren’t diagnosed until the disease has significantly progressed, meaning treatment may be less effective. are living with the disease, Willis said, and it is easy to diagnose with an MRI. Those symptoms can range from blurred vision to pain and fatigue to mobility issues, even trouble with bladder and bowel function.Ībout 1 million people in the U.S. MS can attack the brain, optic nerves or spinal cord, Willis said, and symptoms can vary based on the location of the attack. Eight years later, she returned to her hometown as chief of neurology at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. After a fellowship at the Cleveland Clinic, she became an MS specialist in 2011. The experience plotted Willis’ career path, however. “The textbooks only scratched the surface.” “I found out I didn’t know anything about MS,” Willis said. The Jackson native thought having that many patients with the same diagnosis would make for easy rounds. Alissa Willis didn’t know anyone with MS until her fourth year of medical school when shadowing a doctor with 20 such patients. It was hard just watching life pass me by.”ĭr. There were times I had to sit in the car and watch. Just going to watch my daughter play soccer was too much. “I could not participate with my kids like I always had. My quality of life wasn’t sufficient,” Imes said. Even basic things were becoming less possible. On vacations, she would often stay in the hotel while her husband and two children went out. She had started using a cane or walker to get around. There would be days I would have to choose just one thing I was going to do that day - things as simple as taking a shower would have to be followed by taking a really long nap.”īy 2020, Imes was falling. “My brain would stop talking to my hands while unloading the dishwasher, so I would drop dishes,” she said. While it slowed the disease’s progression, her neurologist classified her first regimen as a failure due to concerns over the side effects. The next four years were anything but predictable for Imes.Īt first, she tried disease-modifying medications - the commonly accepted treatment for MS - that caused weight-gain and depression. It left a lot of uncertainty, which for me, I don’t operate well outside of things that aren’t predictable.” At that point, I realized it was a lifelong diagnosis. “I don’t think I really felt much emotionally until the neurologist confirmed it. “Initially, I didn’t know much about it,” said Imes, the first in her family to have MS. Imes had multiple sclerosis, an auto-immune disorder that affects the central nervous system. It wasn’t long after that she learned what was causing the damage. Imes’ nurse practitioner recommended an MRI, which revealed scarring on her brain, and Imes was referred to a neurologist in Birmingham, Alabama.
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