Hey Novartis! Some name suggestions for you!

I just can't see an MS commercial on TV with beautiful people engaging in idyllic scenes of active living with the words "Fingolimod : Take your life back!" on the screen.

You guys at Novartis are great when it comes to making the medicine do what it does -- I'm not questioning you there! It's just that, let's face it, you don't have the best marketing sense, in my opinion. I mean, look at your pharmaceutical company's name. Novartis?? That sounds like the inflammation of some little known internal organ, sorry.

So, I've decided that I will lend you my many years of marketing expertise that comes from owning a printing and sign business and helping my customers think up catchy tag lines. Don't worry, I won't charge you (unless you actually use it and then this blog entry becomes Exhibit A in the lawsuit). Anyhoo...I've got a few names you could try.

Remember, you're competing with trendy names like "Tysabri" whose nickname has become "Ty" and everyone loves to say it. It's got to be something trendy, refreshing, and gives a hopeful feeling to those taking it without in any way implying a shred of hope. hmmmmm

MS-be-gone is out. Too much of an absolute statement however much we with MS would like to buy into it. I see lawsuits over that one.

Brighter Tomorrow has potential although it's currently being used as a name for an MS grant program I think. But what if we shortened it? Brittom? or Britrow? No... it loses it's positive impact and sounds like something you might find when cleaning a fish.

I know, how about we go back to the Chinese roots of the fungus? Maybe there's a name there to be had. Then again, considering the Chinese angle (in the minds of Americans, Chinese = recall) and the fungus angle (what's catchy about a fungus... unless it's the fungus you are catching?)

How about "Nerve-On, applied directly to the spine!" No, those commercials are so annoying.

I'm going back to what sounds good. Something that smacks of "vitality". Vitameatavegamin is out, I guess.

Seriously, tho... I like these:

Gold Finger (because that's what Fingolimod sounds like to me and it reminds me of James Bond).

Vitalease (combining "vitality" with "ease" as in "ease of movement".)

Proreverse (as in "I'm all for a reversal of my MS damage!")

Jerimod (just to throw my name in there for posterity.)

Anyhow, all I'm trying to do is show you big guys at Novartis that if you are thinking ahead in a positive fashion to the days after FTY720/fingolimod is approved, then you have to get on top of this now. Give us a name we'll be able to pronounce and be proud to say when someone asks us what disease modifying drug we are taking for our Multiple Sclerosis. Please don't keep the Fingolimod label, alright?

If this gets approved, I'm in heaven!

I was just thinking about how nice it is that I only do a shot once a week. I'm sure those of you who haven't had a shot since getting their last boosters as a child would beg to differ, but for people with MS, shots are a part of reality. A necessary evil.

Since getting diagnosed in '99 I have had to stick myself on a daily basis (well, okay, my family knows that I fell off the shot wagon for a while and then got back on). Copaxone was the MS fighting elixir of choice. A tiny needle the goes only into the fat just beneath your skin. But the medicine it delivered was like battery acid. The stuff burned and there's just no way of getting around it.

At no time in the history of MS medications has a person been able to take a pill once a day that is designed to modify the course of the disease progression... until now. True, I can't pull the sheet out of the box and read about side effects or what not to take it with, etc., but I take my one pill a day and that's it. Well, except for that once a week shot, but who's counting? I do it Monday morning and by Monday afternoon I'm over it. It's done, gone, forgotten. For a week!

From what I have read recently, Fingolimod may even be able to repair previous damaged caused to nerves by multiple sclerosis. If that's the case, not only should I have fewer relapses to look forward to, but maybe I'll get some feeling back in my feet and not be quit so off balance.

It will be a sad day if, at the end of this study, Fingolimod doesn't get FDA approval. I will miss my little brown pill and all that it represents to me as a future that looks so bright.

For now it's looking good. No side effects and no relapses so far. You would probably say that two weeks isn't long enough to say whether it's making a difference in slowing the relapses, but consider this: I have been having relapses on a continual basis every three months for the last two years. I couldn't catch a break. Just when I would start to heal from one flare, another one would wash over me. Like an ocean of symptoms that threatened to drown me, I could get no relief.

My last round of steroids (which is all they can do for you to quiet down an acute attack) was back in June of this year. This is now September and I am having no signs of a new attack. All is quite on the MS front. I hope it stays that way, and with this medicine I'm pretty confident I will.

How nice it is to finally be able to get back to the business of living. Just having a regular life without constantly being nagged by your body that you have a disease is a nice thing. If Fingolimod gets approval I will be the happiest woman on earth. Well, the only request I would have would be to give it a jazzier name. Something like "Gold Finger" maybe? James Bond fighting M.S. -- I like the visuals.

Worrying myself sick

Is it really possible to make imagined things become real if you really, really believe in them? It didn't work for me when I tried it with Santa Claus or winning the lottery. But I do feel there is power in positive thinking.

For instance, I'm walking just fine these days and it is because I am doing well with my MS... or at least I think I am. Could it just be that because I don't have all the facts and I only perceive that I'm doing well that I am a walking miracle? If so, I don't want to know the results of all the MRI's I have had lately.

It could be that the reason they've been "lost" or never received by my new neurologist isn't due to miscommunication between hospitals, but rather I am a curiosity being studied by a team of doctors. Maybe they have seen my MRI's and know that I should be a vegetable confined to a bed, but realize that because I don't know this, I am still up and walking.

In that case, I don't want to know. I believe in the power of positive thinking because I have seen the power of negative thinking. I do it to myself all the time. I can talk myself into a panic attack quicker than you can say "OH NO!". And I even have this detached, analytical part of my brain that sits back saying "there you go again... you brought it on yourself."

If it's true that negative thinking can effect your health, then why can't positive thinking? Today I'm practicing "The Little Engine That Could" alternative medicine. I am going to feel better, and thus BE better, because....

I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.

Just between you and me, I'm sick of worrying myself sick and I think I'm going to give it up as a hobby altogether. If anyone has any great links about the power of positive thinking that they'd like to share with me, I'm all ears. Please post them as a comment.