Talk to Your Doctor About New MS Treatments
Hide Video Transcript
Video Transcript
[MUSIC PLAYING] [KEYBOARD CLICKING]
So when a new treatment becomes available, I inevitably have people that come in and want to know about it. So my patients keep me on my toes. My general approach to caring for those with MS is if it ain't broke, don't fix it. So if what we're doing is working, and you're tolerating it-- it's not affecting your quality of life significantly-- then we stick with what's working. Because nine times out of 10 we might eventually have to switch therapy because it's not working. So we don't want to prematurely switch just because something new came out.
But we always discuss new therapies. Even if you're on a therapy, I don't mind giving that talk and telling you what it's about. But again, we make those decisions very carefully. And then in other cases, that therapy might be just the thing that we were waiting on because we've tried several other therapies that haven't worked. And we say, OK, this one is coming out in six months or so. I think this might be the right one. We'll revisit it once it becomes available.
What I am hopeful for in the future is discovering markers to really help us determine when someone is progressing with MS-- that's something that we don't have a good handle on-- and how to adjust treatments for those who kind of are doing OK but maybe could benefit from an alternate therapy. And then the other big advance that I'm really excited and hoping for is something to repair the myelin or repair the damage that's been done. We have several drugs that have been tested. Some of them have not met their primary results but I'm still hopeful that we will be able to find something to reverse the damage that MS causes.
SPEAKER
So we have come a very long way from 1993 to now. We have over 20 therapies for MS. And so it is really the cutting edge of medicine because almost every year, we have sometimes one, two, or three new therapies to help our patients or to help people combat this disease. So when a new treatment becomes available, I inevitably have people that come in and want to know about it. So my patients keep me on my toes. My general approach to caring for those with MS is if it ain't broke, don't fix it. So if what we're doing is working, and you're tolerating it-- it's not affecting your quality of life significantly-- then we stick with what's working. Because nine times out of 10 we might eventually have to switch therapy because it's not working. So we don't want to prematurely switch just because something new came out.
But we always discuss new therapies. Even if you're on a therapy, I don't mind giving that talk and telling you what it's about. But again, we make those decisions very carefully. And then in other cases, that therapy might be just the thing that we were waiting on because we've tried several other therapies that haven't worked. And we say, OK, this one is coming out in six months or so. I think this might be the right one. We'll revisit it once it becomes available.
What I am hopeful for in the future is discovering markers to really help us determine when someone is progressing with MS-- that's something that we don't have a good handle on-- and how to adjust treatments for those who kind of are doing OK but maybe could benefit from an alternate therapy. And then the other big advance that I'm really excited and hoping for is something to repair the myelin or repair the damage that's been done. We have several drugs that have been tested. Some of them have not met their primary results but I'm still hopeful that we will be able to find something to reverse the damage that MS causes.
