I waited six months to consent to the doctor’s first time, saying the words wait-and-see-approach. After the six months of degradation, I began my research, learning what I could about the MS medications. I was puzzled when I read in 2001 how the MS meds all had success rates that were below fifty percent. In other words, I would do better flipping a coin to treat my multiple sclerosis. I then learned that the pharmaceutical companies make the rules about what passes and fail during their own meds’ clinical trials. This disturbing information made me question everything about the intentions of big pharma.
After learning this information, I decided to change my research goals to find how others successfully treated their MS. I found a plethora of people who reportedly had a cure for MS or others who managed their MS in various out of the box methods. I read about everything from bee stings to witchcraft and how others preached how their treatment methods slowed the progression. I would try witchcraft before I would purposely be stung by any stinging creature, just for the record. Although many said they had a cure in actuality, there was no known cure.
I searched the web reading MS forums and research articles and stumbled upon a medication called low dose Naltrexone, LDN, for short. LDN was FDA approved in the mid-’80s in much larger quantities for drug and alcohol addiction, so it was obviously safe. I found a significant amount of trustworthy information that was not merely one guy who had a friend who got cured by drinking some special tonic water. I found thousands of people in various forums who successfully took low dose Naltrexone to impact their MS positively. I also read about low dose naltrexone in medical papers and heard some doctors praising its benefits. www.lowdosenaltrexone.org
I spoke with some who were taking LDN for other autoimmune diseases, like Crohn’s disease, with favorable results. The more reading I did, I found medical papers and studies that showed benefits to those taking LDN for HIV and cancer. There was also a very well educated Ph.D. pharmacist and various doctors who seriously understood the ins and outs of LDN. There was so much positive information in forums and research papers that it was impossible to be a scam just to make a quick buck from the infirmed. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17222320/
I quickly recognized the number of disbelievers who were against LDN. Those who were vociferously against it were probably somehow in the pockets of the drug companies. Big Multiple sclerosis pharma can easily make sixty thousand dollars a year from one MS patient’s medication cost. Multiply that by one hundred thousand patients, and you get six billion reasons for them to be emphatically against anything else or even finding a cure, in my humble opinion. An estimated one million people living with multiple sclerosis in the USA alone allow big pharma to pay, I mean, support the MS Society and other MS organizations.
Drug companies have employees who sit on the boards of and also financially support these MS organizations. Sitting on the boards, they can influence and, in turn, control the way things are run. They do this to encourage all MS patients to comply and simply take the big pharma costly mediations. There is no way to calculate how much money this corrupting behavior creates correctly. Drug company employees who sit on the very boards of MS agencies who serve the MS population are a massive conflict of interest. Doctors get paid handsomely to give speeches and to promote and recommend these drugs to their patients. This is according to a doctor who shared the information with me after he turned down their lucrative offer. These details gave me some inside information as to the untold truth about Big Pharma.
The MS Society 2001 annual report showed that only a small percentage of their income goes to research to find a cure. Sadly, I thought their main objective was to find a cure, but I guess I was wrong. I also learned that drug companies do not do the research themselves that find these medicines. Independent laboratories funded by our tax dollars do the research that finds the medications. Afterward, the drug companies buy the finished product, mass-produce it, slap a hefty price tag on it, and rake in billions. This practice is how the top three pharmaceutical companies made over a billion dollars last year alone (2019).
After two years of physical deterioration, the doctor finally changed my medication to Rebif, less effective in his earlier words. However, I soon decided that LDN was unquestioningly for me, so my new quest was to find a doctor to prescribe LDN. June 20th, 2004, I stopped my Rebif after one month and exclusively began LDN 3 mgs for thirty days and then started at 4.5 mgs. I had a few symptoms that got better, but they were newer issues. The primary goal of LDN, just like all MS meds, is to slow progression, which it has done and has not weakened my immune system.
LDN has been approved and on the market for at least thirty-six years, making it extremely inexpensive and safe. It is mailed to me in Ohio from a compounding pharmacy in Florida, and my last bill was $101.00 for a three-month supply, including shipping. This $33 monthly cost not only means it is affordable, but big pharma cannot make money from it. LDN is inexpensive, and it works, causing the pharmaceutical companies to despise low dose Naltrexone seriously.
I have been on LDN now for sixteen years with the success of having none of the progression I had before I started. I plan to continue taking low dose Naltrexone until there is a cure for this beast called multiple sclerosis. That is a funny statement since, to me, a cure is as likely as me falling off the top of Mount Kilimanjaro. Tanzania and its majestic mountain are 7940 miles away, meaning I will never see its basecamp, let alone fall off the top. I wish greed and money were not such a corrupting force, and empathy and love for our fellow man were more important. However, the power of money reinforces the corruption of this and other aspects of society. In other words, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Addendum: I found this information too late to put it into the story: It appears that Big Pharma has secretly realized that LDN works because now one of the newest MS meds OCREVUS operates eerily similarly to LDN. They have taken effective and affordable medication and turned it into one that is extremely costly. Coincidence? I think not.
The more you know.
Scott's MS Life 