News on Gilenia, Fingolimod, FTY720

I'm slacking again, I know, I know.

There's news out and I haven't yet reported it...
http://www.novartis.com/newsroom/media-releases/en/2010/1418321.shtml

FDA has extended the review period by another 3 months pushing the expected approval date from June 21 to Sept.

I know this is disappointing to some and I feel bad for those who are eager to give Fingo a try, but for me it's another 3 months of free meds for certain.

I really don't know what I'll do if they take this stuff away.

That said, I do suspect that I am currently in a relapse. I'll know for certain in a week or two when I go to my next checkup. I say that I suspect it due to having reduced sensation in the bottoms of both feet, kind of like wearing socks when I'm really barefoot. I also have this odd Lehrmitte's type of buzzing, shocking sensation that runs from my groin down the front of my thigh and for an instant I lose all control of that leg. I don't know if it's truly Lehrmitte's though as I don't feel it's caused by a lesion in my cervical spine. The position or movement of my head seems not to affect it at all.

It's not a constant pain but a fleeting symptom that comes without warning and has caused me to fall several times, usually at inopportune moments (but when is it ever okay to fall just because you had nothing else planned at that moment?).

Beyond that, spasticity has returned to haunt my daily movements. My legs seem stiff and pained just about constantly although I can make myself ignore it.

I think that Fingo has kept the symptoms of this relapse -- if indeed that's what this is -- to such a minimum that it has allowed me to convince myself that I'm just having a bad day today" and not really relapsing. But it just dawned on me the other day that I have been having these bad days for a few weeks straight.

It's not the knock down, drag out, kind of relapse that punches you in the gut and lets you know it means business. I'm not trying to find what I did with my cane. I just feel "off". If that's a relapse, then I can live with it.

Better than the old ones that caused me to reflect on whether life really was worth living. Many was the time I suspected not.

So, I leave you today with this thought... If a relapse falls in the forest and nobody's paying attention to it, did it really happen?

I guess only my MRI tech knows for sure.

I hope they don't make me get in that thing...

OH, HAPPY DAY AFTER WORLD MS DAY! (always fashionably late to the party. sigh.)