Ahn-Young-Ha-Se-Yo (Hello in Korean both North and South), - Apparently, Covid-19 levels v low in N Korea as if you display symptoms the treatment strategy is simple. Shoot them in the head! Yikes. - On the other hand, South Korea has had notable success in keeping the fatalities from it v low. More impressively is how they have limited the spread of infection so dramatically. Explaining why leads me into an inevitable political rant. For that is why; so much better preparedness in testing ability and PPE etc. By now we all know by now that the price for living with such a high level of personal freedom and the accompanying level of the natural rejection of state-imposed actions and restrictions. With one, comes the other. Such is life. -------- MS News -------- I would urge you to listen to the Inside Science podcast from the BBC - available on many podcast apps, I prefer Podbean - as it really effectively explains many of the issues that affect all of us, not just MS'ers. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b036f7w2 - I even thought of a question to pose the next Neuro in our interview sights ;) On Wednesday I'll interview Dr Ruth Dobson of Barts and the Blizard Institute of Queen Mary's University London (https://www.qmul.ac.uk/blizard/). I want to ask how or if at all any of the MS meds might affect the testing for Covid-19 that is sure to come. To see if you have had the virus and recovered the test looks for anti-bodies and I wonder what the effect of certain DMTs such as ocrelizumab, alemtuzumab, rituximab, cladribine (the really effective ones) might have on anti-body production. - Questions for the video series - on that note - please please send them in. Just post up on the forum here, reply to a thread. it all gets seen and if you haven't had a reply then prod me as I will have been useless about it, I am not ignoring you. It works best if you tag the post with @dominics or @fiona_brown - Telemedicine - this is something we all need to get used to. Aaron Boster MD has made a great video on the things you (the patient) needs to consider first. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNv7PBmwE_k&feature=em-uploademail - Mouse Doctor at Barts is no fan of Glatiramer Acetate (GA), Called Copaxone, but in this post I think he may be misdirecting his ire. GA is GA. The people marketing it (Teva if I recall) are the ones twising and turning and generally giving science a bad name as they try to 'find' hitherto unknown properties of the drug. It is interesting to read as you see how a good researcher evicerates weak/poor science trying to masquerade as real science. https://multiple-sclerosis-research.org/2020/04/what-ever-ga-does-it-must-do-it-badly-otherwise-it-would-be-more-effective-now-its-a-b-cell-modulator/ - I think @stumbler may have posted this but you really ought to read an article by one of our own - Rachel - that she has written. @longboat is an experienced journalist and as such is considerably more skilled at making things readable. I just ramble on. Rachel doesn't. https://multiple-sclerosis-research.org/2020/04/msers-and-covid-19-trying-to-find-clarity-in-the-confusion/ - Twitter has become a really great place to stay up to date with the explosion in scientific output. If you have ever been involved in research you'll know what a massively long process it is to get work published. Now - BAM! The explosion in the use of pre-print sites where new work is published prior to peer-reviewing (the process that keeps science honest) is astonishing. Twitter is now peer reviewing and calling things out when the scientific Twitterati spot a hole in methodology or design. Usual caveats apply - there are idiots and crooks. They are a small minority so don't believe everything you read without a bit of cross-checking first. - The latest MS Research news is here: https://www.sciencedaily.com/news/health_medicine/multiple_sclerosis/ It is the cutting edge hypothesised stuff. Most things here are a good 10y away from application if they do make it through the rigour of the scientific process. -------- Social Stuff -------- Thank you for all the touch typing stuff. I love the idea of a box over the hands. - Dealing with the lockdown. Most of us MS'ers are quite used to a bit of social isolation from time to time. However, the urge to go batshit crazy from time to time strikes us all. I was listening to a fellow being interviewed who took part in a 512 day simulation of a round trip to Mars. He and 5 others were locked into a space no bigger than the average house for 512 - let me say that again.... five hundred and twelve - days with no phones, no sunlight, no internet, having to grow their own food etc. His main tips were as follows: - Set yourself achievable objectives to learn a new skill. Take time on your own to listen to music and do something - his words - mindless. Just chill out away from others. Address any conflicts as they arise. Don't let them fester. Exercise/Stretch And if you can, get sunlight. Vitamin D and it keeps your natural circadian rhythms in play. - I love walking. Did 13.5 km this morning. I need sticks these days as my poor old body has MS, and I have done my best to beat it up regardless. I have had many bone breaks (the r femur is biggest so far - I have a dynamic hip screw, and to get across what is involved here is a training video with no blood or gore. Really fascinating stuff. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFNdwdUlXME ) and much more surgery due to my *ahem* active lifestyle doing dangerous things. Staying active s key. I cannot stress enough how essential it is. I have spent my entire moving life doing things and I swear - totally non-scientifically - that it has had a positive effect on my MS. One of my neuros thinks so as we got into a cycling chat when I tried to recruit him to ride from London to Brussels on a fixie. He cried off, admitted he had cycled across the US during his PhD there, but said that he thought I was doing so well because I just did things, MS be damned.