Greetings from an Italian researcher

[italianphil]

Hello everyone. Let me start by saying that I do not have MS. But I am a researcher, working on immunology for years. I am not a clinician and I've always conducted my research on rodents. I have to admit to you that I was in the middle of a crisis: experiments not working, which make me wonder why I even do research at all. Then I thought of patients, people that may benefit from what I do. I realized that, even if I understand well what autoimmunity is and what immunological mechanisms are involved, I have limited knowledge of the clinical aspects of diseases like MS. Reading through your forum I learned, and I also realized how strong you people are. You really are fantastic warriors. From what I understand the relapse phases of the disease are terrible. Damn it, do you know if there's anything, a test or something that could predict a relapse in order to take action as soon as possible? Good luck to all of you and keep having faith in research. I will.

[jimmylegs]

hi phil

serum uric acid levels may be one indicator of disease activity.

normal range 150-350µmol/L (at my lab);
~290µmol/L in healthy controls,
~230µmol/L in MS remission,
MS average ~194µmol/L,
MS relapse ~160µmol/L

i've cited most of these numbers on the Uric Acid page on wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uric_acid# ... _sclerosis

that said, i don't know what the action to be taken would be, specifically. a patient could take inosine, but in my view uric acid status is likely only one small aspect of a complex web of interactions that lead to and/or predict relapse.

[carolew]

Italianphil, we need people like you, people who will think of who will benefit in the end of the difficult research that you do. Don't give up because we won't. We need you to play with those rodents and give us hope for the future of the science. Carole

[CureOrBust]

do you know if there's anything, a test or something that could predict a relapse in order to take action as soon as possible?

I personally only have one known trigger for a relapse, so it acts as a predictor me. All cold/flu infections will trigger a relapse within 2 weeks. I also know that 2 single daily doses of oral prednisone of 75mg will stop the relapse (once it has started, I haven't tried taken it before I notice the relapse).

My problem is that I cant take the prednisone before the infection has gone for fear of stopping my immune system from killing the virus / bacteria, and thereby worsening my relapse.

I am thinking that before we are aware of the relapse, there is probably already inflammation which an MRI (with contrast medium) could detect. But it would be hardly practical to be getting those every day.

Welcome Phil, I hope you stay, and know we appreciate your efforts.

[BioDocFL]

Phil,

I am much like you: doing research and find MS and autoimmune diseases fascinating but do not know anyone personnally with the diseases (except my Mother who died of breast cancer after suffering with rheumatoid arthritis for ~20 years).

Can you tell us about the rodents you study? What are the strains and what theories are you testing?

Thanks,

Wesley

[italianphil]

I am working on Dendritic Cells and Microglia and my focus is on TLR signal transduction pathways. I am interested in the role of these cells in autoimmunity. These cells are involved in the demyelination process and would like to understand whether clinicians already know of any interleukin, interferon, produced by these cells BEFORE the relapse that may be interesting to study relapses in EAE animal models. Using the EAE model, researchers at UPENN were able to prevent relapses by treating the mice with anti-IL12 antibodies. Dendritic cells are key producers of IL12 and they are the controllers of Tcells and probably provide "wrong" signals to them. I want to know more about these signals. CureOrBust post is very interesting because he can predict relapses with a flu, well Dendritic cells are among the very first cells that react to the virus and that eventually trigger the immune response.
Please continue letting me know whether you know of any particular test that can predict relapses.

[HarryZ]

I am working on Dendritic Cells and Microglia and my focus is on TLR signal transduction pathways. I am interested in the role of these cells in autoimmunity. These cells are involved in the demyelination process and would like to understand whether clinicians already know of any interleukin, interferon, produced by these cells BEFORE the relapse that may be interesting to study relapses in EAE animal models. Using the EAE model, researchers at UPENN were able to prevent relapses by treating the mice with anti-IL12 antibodies. Dendritic cells are key producers of IL12 and they are the controllers of Tcells and probably provide "wrong" signals to them. I want to know more about these signals. CureOrBust post is very interesting because he can predict relapses with a flu, well Dendritic cells are among the very first cells that react to the virus and that eventually trigger the immune response.
Please continue letting me know whether you know of any particular test that can predict relapses.

Unfortunately, EAE is not the same as MS in humans and the many treatments that researchers have found beneficial to that poor MS mouse, have all failed to do anything for human MS.

While the immune system does attack myelin in MS patients, the big question is whether the immune system is simply reacting to the inflammation that is being caused by another mechanism responsible for MS. Nobody has ever been able to answer that question and since the "MS" in rodents has been induced, there is no way of replicating a situation for study purposes in humans.

Harry

[CureOrBust]

CureOrBust post is very interesting because he can predict relapses with a flu, well Dendritic cells are among the very first cells that react to the virus and that eventually trigger the immune response.

Ok, there is one other circumstance that can "trigger" a relapse. More the case of "induce". I tried the antibiotics protocol against MS (roxy, doxy & pulsed flagyl). I found that five days of flagyl could trigger a "relapse". Those on the protocol would attribute this to a "pseudo relapse" (caused by bacterial die-off, i.e. herxheimer reactions), but I feel mine were real.

I don't consider that as a true "trigger for a relapse", as it is known that flagy at HIGH doses can be neuro toxic. I was guessing my compromised myelin could not tolerate even the "lower" doses and started to die, to which the immune system came in to clean up (and not knowing when to stop). But that's all just me and my crazy, unjustified thoughts.

Does Flagy have a known effect on Dendric cells also?

[Rita]

Hi italianphil ,

Glad to see you here. I'm with you and everybody thinking in this way. I'm living in Spain and we are a group of affected MS people.

We constituted a foundation in 2006 “Fundación GAEM” http://www.gaem-bcn.org/
And our main objective is to impel the independent investigation in MS.

We spoke with a basic investigator from CISC who have published an interesting article on a possible treatment for the MS, and the experiment already begun.
We deeply believe that civil society needs to be in contact with basic investigators so that there is interconnection with the affected ones and so they see its needs.
I have to admit that there are a lot of people that are not agree with us, specially the ones that work in some health areas, but many others do, and we are not going to give up!

I think that if all the independent organizations would go together MS is going to stop in a few years. So I would like if there are any others groups in EU, or any other part in the world, like us just to be in contact.

Rita