Testing a new MS medication
Rachael's decision to try new medication
Rachael's neurologist recommended Rebif, one of the four first-line MS drugs (along with Copaxone, Betaseron and Avonex). Rebif, a type of interferon made from Chinese hamster ovary cells, affects the body's immune response to myelin. (Interferons belong to a family of proteins that occur naturally in the body, helping to regulate the body's immune system and fight disease).
Although the drug has to be injected three times a week and costs her about $6,000 a year (the provincial health-care plan covers the other $16,000) and doesn't work for all patients, Rachael felt she had no choice. "I'm young. We had to do everything we could," she says.
Counter-attack measures
But Rachael wanted to do more than rely on medication to fight the disease. Though she had never exercised in her life, she started running, biking, doing Pilates and lifting weights. "I thought, If MS is going to break down my muscles and attack my motor skills, then I need to make myself fitter and stronger. The more running I did, and the more I lifted weights, the harder it would be for MS to attack my body," says Rachael, who gets up at 6 a.m. five days a week to run eight kilometres with her neighbour Charlene.
She also spends an hour lifting free weights at the gym three times a week. "I did a half-marathon last year. That was a big achievement for me," says Rachael, now a svelte 128 pounds on a five-foot-five frame, after shedding 35 pounds. "I've cut out eating sweets, too." Although first-line drug treatments are effective for many patients with relapsing-remitting MS, they don't work for everyone.
Cathy's story: chemotherapy
On Aug. 7, 2007, Cathy Nabuurs began the first of nine consecutive days of heavy-duty chemotherapy at The Ottawa Hospital. Unlike most people who undergo chemotherapy, Cathy wasn't a cancer patient. The 36-year-old mother of two in Charlottetown suffered from a rapidly progressing form of MS that threatened to put her in a wheelchair.
The standard MS drug treatments hadn't worked, so she opted for a radical experimental stem cell therapy that offered the possibility of slowing or stopping the progression of the disease -- if it didn't kill her. "I was scared. I knew one patient had died early on from the effects of the chemo," says Cathy. "The protocol of risks [the list of things that could go wrong] was as thick as a book."
Wiping out the immune system
In this gruelling procedure, Cathy was first given high doses of three drugs to completely destroy her diseased immune system. Then, on Aug. 17 -- her daughter Megan's first birthday -- Cathy received an infusion of blood-forming stem cells that had been extracted from her bone marrow a month earlier. Her doctors hoped that these stem cells would rebuild a new, healthier immune system that would not attack Cathy's myelin, the protective lining that wraps around nerves in the brain and spinal cord.
Although Cathy was very ill that day, she vividly recalls the cells being infused into her body through an IV. "It's very emotional. Here's your life going back into your body. This little bag of stem cells is so small. It's hard to believe that such a small amount could make such a big difference." Over the next few weeks Cathy remained in hospital, still highly vulnerable to infection, waiting for her new immune system to develop and grow. "You had to wonder if the stem cells would take," she says.
Click to continue to learn more about Cathy's battle with MS...
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