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As a third-year medical student Alex Normandin expected to be learning about patients, not become one himself.
But then, the Montrealer and aspiring doctor noticed some alarming symptoms — fatigue, numbness and problems with balance and coordination. Researchers at the Montreal Neurological Institute confirmed he has a particularly aggressive form of multiple sclerosis, an unpredictable and degenerative disease that affects the central nervous system.
Most patients with MS do not become severely disabled because the illness moves slowly. But in Normandin’s case, the destruction was so fast that doctors expected him to need a wheelchair within months.
Normandin, however, learned of a cutting-edge treatment run by Mark Freedman and Harry Atkins at the Ottawa General Hospital — an experimental bone-marrow stem-cell transplant — as a last resort for patients who fail to improve on drug therapy.
Normandin became patient 19 of 24. His transplant took place in Ottawa in December 2008.
Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/healt...030/story.html
But then, the Montrealer and aspiring doctor noticed some alarming symptoms — fatigue, numbness and problems with balance and coordination. Researchers at the Montreal Neurological Institute confirmed he has a particularly aggressive form of multiple sclerosis, an unpredictable and degenerative disease that affects the central nervous system.
Most patients with MS do not become severely disabled because the illness moves slowly. But in Normandin’s case, the destruction was so fast that doctors expected him to need a wheelchair within months.
Normandin, however, learned of a cutting-edge treatment run by Mark Freedman and Harry Atkins at the Ottawa General Hospital — an experimental bone-marrow stem-cell transplant — as a last resort for patients who fail to improve on drug therapy.
Normandin became patient 19 of 24. His transplant took place in Ottawa in December 2008.
Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/healt...030/story.html