Hi Kitty,

I have to agree with your thumbs down.

I see pharmaceutical ads to treat many of my own conditions and feel just as you do and I also see all the class action suit ads for some of the drugs which have been prescribed.

I am not sure what the FDA is doing. Are they REALLY protecting us? Life saving drugs seem to take forever to reach the market and many other drugs hit the market without full and accurate studies.

It is sad that we, as patients, get put into situations where we just don't know who or what to trust.

Are the docs being duped, too? They get the sales pitch and then prescribe the drugs. Do docs always weigh the risks vs the benefits for each individual patient? I think some do but just not sure if they all do.

I realize some of the "risks" are stated for liability purposes and may be rare but for me, once I hear that it can be fatal, that is enough for me to stay far away from a drug unless it is absolutely needed to keep me alive. Only then is it worth the risk because without it I would die. But then, I am a chicken. I am risk aversive. A doc has to give me a really good reason to take a med. I am taking a lot of drugs for various conditions but I have also declined many a drug, too.

I totally understand why someone would feel outrage at ads for meds that are misleading to say the least. Been there, too.

Thanks for allowing me to post when it was not my place to do so. Even though I said that I do not have MS, there is always the chance that I do and just don't know it. As said in this tread, some MS patients are asymptomatic and don't even know they have MS. So, let me say that I hope I do not have MS.

I am sorry for each of you that is afflicted with this disease and wish each of you the very best that can be yours in the road you travel.

Thanks,

Hopeless, you're always welcome to post here. Anytime! It's good to get lots of opinions.

I hope you don't have MS, too! It's definitely NOT fun......unless you have the kind that lady in the Tec ad has. Then you can go swimming, hiking and to the carnival and still have the strength to make it back home.

Hi Kitty,

I have been thinking more about the drug ads since your thread.

I have come to the conclusion they are wasting their money on advertising them.

The target audience for the drugs they advertise for any medical condition are those afflicted with the condition.

The ads usually do one of two things: offend the patients with the illness OR scare the person they want to take their drug.

So, who are they selling to? They need to adjust their methods and consider their target audience.

The ads might work on some docs, but the way the ads are designed, they are not usually going to make a patient go running to their doctor and request them. I think they have either offended the patient or scared them so they are not going to ask their doc for the drug.

Well, at least that is how I have responded to most drug ads.

There is ONE drug ad that I truly LOVE. I just think it is cute. It is the one where the animated bladder grabs the woman by the hand and keeps dragging her to the restroom. The little bladder is just cute. Love the facial animations of it. AND, a person may actually remember what the ad is trying to sell. I am not spelling it correctly, but the drug is pronounced like Mirbetric.

Thanks for letting me put my 2 cents in on this thread.

Post Script,

Forgot to mention that I am usually so busy watching the little animated bladder, I never pay attention to the warnings and such. I don't need the drug so I have never listened closely. Maybe it says something that would scare me, if I were the target audience.

I just think it is cute.

Well now you do. I have had a Dx of MS since 2006, and was on Copaxone from 2006 to 2009 and have been on Rebif from 2009 to present. Since I had my hearing loss episode in 2004, I have not had any overt symptoms that have affected me in a way that anybody on the outside would notice if I didn't tell them about it. I have some heat sensitivity and fatigue from time to time, and my hearing still gets weird at times, but other than seeing more and more lesions show up on my MRIs, you would never know I have MS.

I understand the frustration you are expressing with the commercials, and I know that my experience is anything but typical, but I am living the life they are trying to make people think is possible with MS. I have no idea if the DMDs are what have kept my symptoms away, but I do have to say it isn't as impossible as it might seem to somebody who hasn't been as lucky as I have.

I think it is interesting that they are actually showing an ad for MS. It makes me think that more people are being dignosed with it now. Otherwise, why would they have tv commercials for it?

I had seen a post on FB about a law that Congress has on hold (it is part of a bigger bill) that would actually attempt to discover how many peple in the U.S. are diagnosed with MS. I always see the 400,000 to 500,000 figure, but I suspect it is higher. That same figure has been alluded to for years.

As far as the ad goes, it annoys me that it is described as a medication for MS relapses. My mother sent me an email saying she had seen an ad for a new drug that might help me since I am currently having a relapse. We know it is for RRMS, but it makes it appear to the general public that this is a medication that will control your symptoms.

Yeah, I think in general that any TV advertising for medications is misguided at best, and not helpful at all in many cases. They spend 90% of any commercial telling you every possible side effect that could ever occur, and leave me shaking my head wondering why anybody with sore hands due to arthritis would want to chance loss of consciousness, bleeding in the brain, coma, or death...

That is super TX. I do hope it is the meds helping you, but who cares. If it ain't broke don't fix it.

The thing about MS is that I'm not at all sure it's just one disease. Some have lots of symptoms, others none.

The drug companies just want to lump them all under one heading so they can sell their product. IMHO.

I agree with you Vicky!!!