This BG12 sounds like another hyped up Biogen big pharma MS Med for RRMS only. My question has always been, at least since I grew out of the RRMS class, is...Why do the DMDs not help all peeps with MS???

The answer(IMHO)is...that they don't help peeps with RRMS either. RRMS is self healing, between remittances and remissions, so it's hard to tell if the med is helping or if the disease is just doing it's thing.

My little LDN nightly capsule, for the last 9/10 years, has worked better for me, in slowing this disease than the DMDs, that just made me sicker and rushed me out of RRMS to SPMS..

I think they're all a bunch of crap, for most peeps, with the exception of Tysabri, which I believe, in some, does halt/slow the disease.

Steping down off of my soap box..

Well I'm coming at this from the exact opposite end of it as you and trying to make sense of everything. Could it be just hype? Of course. But it has had remarkable results when it comes to psoriasis, and I find it interesting that LDN has also had great results with psoriasis. And they both raise endorphins.

If they understood the cause of this disease, there would probably better options. But they don't. For me, not even being diagnosed yet, I am not ready to give up on them, but I am very leery of the other DMDs. My readings on them have brought me to tears thinking about the possible consequences. Frankly, many of them sound like poison to me. I am certain BG-12 is no cure. But I am also certain, based on its use for psoriasis, that it has the least scary side effects by a mile.

And if something might work, and that something isn't going to do harm (like some of the other DMDs might), then, for me, it is a no brainer.

And up until now, I'm the guy who doesn't take more than aspirin if he can help it.

I hear ya!! I went to my neuro today, and we discussed BG12. He is hoping it will be available by the end of the year. He is more excited about the Stem Cell research that is being done in trials right now.
He did agree to allow me to go back on LDN until BG12 is available....so I am very happy for that.
Will have to call Skip's in the morning.

IMO, ALL the dmd's are a poison. But like you said, if something might work.... All these meds do some kind of harm to us. Out of all the dmd's available now, copaxone is the one with the least amount of side effects. Its still a chemical, poison if you will, but I am trying it. Nothing is a cure. Just hopefully something to slow down the inevitable. Thats all Im hoping for. When the CRAB's were introduced, I asked why isnt there a pill for this cuz I HATE shots. Now there is a pill, but it can kill you!! Give me a needle, and Im ok with that when looking at what that little PILL can do to you. Im not big on any meds for anything!! If C doesnt work for me, Im done with dmd's. Beta and C are enough for me. No more. I dont trust anything they say about these drugs anymore. It was like heaven when G came out, then 11 people lost their lives. Ty was also soooo great, then the brain infections happend. Im not trying to scare anyone, I do personally know some folks who take G and Ty and they are doing well on it, but its definately not for me. Hopefully for everyone waiting on BG-12, it will work for you's. For me, BG-12 is not in my dmd vocabulary. Dont mean to be a downer , or get anyone mad, that was not my intent.

I do not want to diminish the experiences of those of you who have already walked this path, but I don't want to just give up on a chance to slow this disease either. I have to balance some sense of hope with the reality of how badly some of these meds have impacted people. It doesn't seem like an easy task.

I think my strategy is going to be something along the lines of trying everything I can that doesn't have very serious risk attached. I'm thinking Swank or another ms diet, supplements, exercise, other lifestyle changes, and the less dangerous meds. I definitely don't have all of this fleshed out in my head yet.

Like I said, the one thing I like about BG-12 is that it has been in use for a long time. Whether it helps MS long term or not is still an unknown in my mind, trials or not. But I think we have a realistic idea of the bad that comes with BG-12, and it looks much less bad than the other DMDs.

Woman at today's monthly MS support group has been taking the higher of the 2 doses for 3 years. Said after a couple months?..no more relapses and she's progressive. Impressed me.

At my last visit about 2 weeks ago, my neuro said it should be available in about 30 days!

Yeti, I'm one person who succeeded with the Swank MS Diet. I know i succeed with it because of the bad things that happen (symptom wise) when I get off it, which I occasionally do for various reasons. Now does the Swank diet help me for another reason than MS? I don't know, but Dr. Swank's idea was that MS was an attack on fat cells, including myelin, an autoimmune attack on them. Now in my case it is possible that I react to fat from other reasons (with neuro symptoms). I have no way to tell and no one to ask. I don't know any neurologists whom I could ask as they would not know.
You may ask, do I have myelin damage shown on MRI? Yes, many years ago when I first got a dx. Also Visual Evoked Response and Visual Fields tests, also abnormal, eye symptoms later normal on next tests, although Myelin remained damaged (and spots moved) over the several years I was going to MS neurologists. I finally quit going to them because I got another dx which can produce neuro symptoms although it can produce other ones as well. But I didn't quit because I lost my MS dx--no doctors still varied on whether I had MS or not. No one was sure. But I did have the typical brain spots we all have heard about and which most of us have. I'm old now, but when I got my dx it was a LONG time ago, almost 30 years. And all that time I've been on the Swank. And all that time I got worse if I got off it.
Now I have a rare blood disease called Polycythemia Vera, so all diagnostic bets are off as to what is causing what. But I am still on the Swank diet.
Dr. Swank also thought that "something is missing in MS blood" but he was never able to finish research on that. He was, after all, very old, and underfunded. The underfunding of Dr. Swank is not my idea of intelligence.