Literally just months before I was stricken with my first major MS attack I quit my job to search for another position which meant giving up my health insurance and everything else in hopes of bettering my life. And as you probably have already figured out, this was not one of my best ideas and I paid for that mistake mightily. Let’s fast forward a year and a half roughly from that point to my diagnosis of a major disease with no insurance and no money to speak of to try and treat my illness. It became pretty apparent pretty quickly that without insurance I was going to have to be creative when trying to deal with the crushing news that I had Multiple Sclerosis and no way to financially deal with it. And then someone, I don’t remember who, asked if I had considered signing up for a Clinical Trial?

     When I first started checking out what and where I could go I was apprehensive about whether or not you needed to be insured before they would consider you, and when I found out that you didn’t need any insurance I was ready to do whatever it took to get signed up as it finally felt like something was going right in my life. A few phone calls was all it took to bring me to Virginia Mason Hospital in Seattle Washington and to Doctor Mariko Kita head of staff in the Neurology’s clinical trial’s department. It just so happened that they had two new studies that were just getting underway and in both cases the patient, me, was assured of getting a real drug and not a placebo as can often happen in one of these studies where a control group is always used to determine the efficacy of the drug, or drugs, that are being studied. After considering them both I choose the one that sounded a little bit safer and began the long question and answer process that you have to go though before even being seriously considered. And on the very next visit I was accepted into the study I wanted to participate in and shuttled off to my intake physical which is a real physical where you are probed prodded and lab tested for anything that could negatively influence the outcome of the study before finally being sent to EKG for a heart monitor test. I passed everything with flying stars and told when to return to start my study medication.

     In the study that I choose to participate in there were three groups the first one was the control group that received 20mg Copaxone and since this group was receiving a pre-filled daily dose there was no way they could use this group as a blind study group where the Doctors who were doing the study wouldn’t be able to tell the difference in results with the drug being studied which is often the case. The other two groups consisted of one that would receive the regular dose of 0.25mg Betaseron, now I think they have changed that to 0.30mg, every other day and the third group would get the increased Betasron dose of 0.50mg every other day. The study was a two year blind study between the two Beatseron groups to determine if the larger dose was more effective then the regular dosage. After the two years was finished I received the study results and found out that I had been in the regular 0.25mg dose of Betaseron group. And in the studies final conclusions it was determined that there was no statistical difference between the regular dose of Betaseron and the larger dose of Betaseron.

     My own personal conclusions were a bit different though once you consider that I had received thousands of dollars worth of medication and, for the most part, free health care for two years, my conclusion was a resoundingly positive winning scenario where I was happy to have played my part for science.

     However there are many things to consider before deciding to become a part of a Clinical trial. First of all many of these studies are done at University Hospitals which are almost always located in the heart of the biggest cities in the country which means, or at least in my case it did, an hour and a half drive several times a week in the beginning of the study and at least once every couple of months towards the end. And these studies are run on a very tight schedule so getting caught in traffic adds quite a bit of stress when you’re trying to make an appointment while also trying not to go postal on many of the idiots who seem to think that if they can just get ahead of you, it will be clear sailing to where ever they need to be.

     And when you finally get to the hospital there is another set of problems as many of these hospitals are mini-cities just in themselves, with the Neurology Department on the twentieth floor of one building, your blood draw at the Lab in a completely different building, and the MRI machine located in the basement of a third building a block away, and on some visits you may have to go to all three buildings before you’re done. And for the most part it’s really up to you to get to these separate locations on your own or with family help if at all possible.

     And the paperwork, oh yes, the paperwork, at the beginning of every study be prepared to receive a large notebook sized study manual that will outline the entire study from medication to exams and whatever you and everyone else including Doctors, Nurses, and Clinicians, are expected to perform. And because, this is really a contract, you are expected to read each and every page before you sign each and every page. And when that’s all done they close the deal with the scariest page of all which is the one that states that you understand that though every precaution has been taken to insure your safety there is always the possibility that something might go wrong and that by signing this document you are pretty much giving up all of your legal rights throughout the study and beyond. In essence, this page states that you’re consenting to be a lab rat with very few legal rights, but you’re also accepting the possibility that this study medication may also turn out to be the ultimate cure.

     With all of that in mind, would I ever consider being in another Clinical Trial in the future? The answer for me would be a resounding, “Yes”! I can’t think of a better way to help my fellow MS’ers then to put myself into this position to help find a cure to this monster of a disease. And if I could find one where the research included the study of stem cell injection with the possibility of repairing the damage to the myelin sheathing around my nerves I would be all in as this, in my opinion, seems to be the best path to finding a meaningful treatment or even an eventual cure for this debilitating disease. And if that ever happens, you all will be the first to know!

 

Bill Walker