Greetings people! Today is Wednesday, February 3rd, and it’s a COLD DAY IN CHARLOTTE! Now, as I grew up in Minnesota, it pains me a bit to say that a low temperature in the uppers 20’s is cold… but my goodness. It’s cold out there! 🙂 Of course, we’ll be in the upper 40’s later this afternoon … still… brrrr.. 🙂
So… have you heard the exciting news? There’s a new vaccine that’s going to stop/cure/halt/end/fix… multiple sclerosis! Maybe. 🙂
Over the past few weeks, this has been a pretty hot topic in the MS world. We had dinner with friends a week ago and it came up out of the blue. Well, one of those “friends” is in the medical field, so maybe not that surprising, but MS isn’t usually a topic we discuss over dinner. 🙂 Anyway, news like this is sure to garner a lot of attention, but at the same time… definitely have to take things with a grain of salt so as to not get our hopes up too much! Right?
The vaccine in question is being developed similar to the new COVID vaccines. It’s called an mRNA vaccine. I really don’t understand the technical aspects of things (Of course), but the “M” in mRNA stands for “Messenger”. Basically, the vaccine provides our bodies with directions on producing some sort of protein related to Myelin… (Myelin is the nerve-ending coating that MS attacks causing all our issues).. and someway/somehow… makes things better. Sounds pretty groovy. Right? Again… Maybe!
Another important note here is that the vaccine is shown to be effective in mice. Mice aren’t people the last I checked, but still.. thank God for rodents! The mice being used in these studies don’t have MS, but some other immune system disorder. The immune disease the mice are infected with (Poor mice) is called Experimental Autoimmune Encephalomyelitis (Again… Poor mice) and is, I guess, close enough to MS, that the results can be viewed as the same. The results have shown some truly positive results from an immune system perspective…. It’s so technical I won’t get into it, but it’s positive for sure (At least that’s what all the article say). Again, poor mice. I know it’s all in the name of science and moving things forward, but I’d hate to be guinea pig on this sort of stuff. 🙁
At the end of the day, a vaccine like this is probably still years away from being ready for human use. It provides a lot of hope that the scientists/doctors are making progress in the area of MS therapies and medicines… all culminating (Hopefully) in a cure! From my perspective, the piece I am most interested in… well.. the “Pieces” I should say… are the vaccines ability to halt disease progress and, just as important, repair damage that’s already been done! I guess we’ll find out over time… but it sure is nice to think that one day … some of the things that MS has taken away from me (and others in the MS Community) can be given back! What a thought…. 🙂
That’s it for today! Hope everyone is staying warm and happy through the cold months! Maybe we’ll see America getting back to some sort of normalcy with the release of the Covid vaccine… I know I’m sure hoping for that!
Until the next time…
Steve
