Funding for research

[mscaregiver]

What if funding was made available for research into some of the newer concepts in treating MS?

Lets take these four, and if anyone has others, please post as to what they are and how they are supposed to work and why the funding should be directed to it..

Low Dose Naltrexone
minocycline
Chlamydia pneumoniae
Desipramine

This can be a very informative thread in several ways, with the pool of knowledge here, lets hope to see some very constructive and factual thoughts and ideas in this area..

Thanks Philip..

[OddDuck]

Most all of these "new" discoveries pertain to treating RRMS or beginning stages of MS, not the progressive forms.

You may find this interesting:

MS Cause Discovered? updated 5-11-04
In regard to the double blind study of antibiotics on MS:

The latest news on Chlamydia pneumonia

From Dr. Sriram of Vanderbilt University, Discoverer of Chlamydia pneumoniae in MS.

Dear Mr Miller.

Although the patients that I have treated with antibiotics have been about 20-25, the results have been varied. In short, individuals who have been treated earlier in the course appear to do better than those treated later. However there is not a scientfic study by any means. The study that is funded by the MS is underway and we have enrolled 11 patients into a double blind study.

Unfortunately this is a double blind placebo study, that is what the reviewers wanted to have done; now it has become very difficulty to recruit patients into a placebo controlled study since not many want to be in a placebo arm. This was supposed to be a two center study but South Western Univ at Dallas have dropped out because of their inability to recruit patients. They did not get a single patient into the study. I have therefore been scrambling to get other center and two others have agreed to get on. but they have not recruited any patients yet. So that is where we are.

My hunch is that as the disease becomes progressive, number of organisms decreases and therefore they become more difficult to be tracked down by antibiotics. I believe this may be the reason that the relapsing remitting disease patiens appear to do better than the progressive. Or they may need a different regimen of therapy. All this needs to be sorted out.

I hope I have answered your questions but let me know if you need any more info.

Sincerely,

Ram Sriram

[OddDuck]

Most of my research is geared toward treating progressive forms of MS. The reason why I like desipramine so well, is that it overlaps and shows evidence of efficacy on the very same individual physiological processes as minocycline, LDN, and the interferons. Broader spectrum of action in one pill, as they say.

I will post my most recent compilation of data that I found on the other thread regarding desipramine (not to push the drug, but just because all of the data will then be located in one place, if anyone is interested.)

Again........since I myself have a progressive form of MS, my concentration is on preventing and reversing axonal damage, not just remyelination alone.

Thanks for your interest.

Deb

P.S. I do still plan on discussing these findings with the Sriram team, as my next appointment is with them.