welcome to the organic green doctor blog

i am a family physician who was diagnosed with
early mild cognitive impairment(mci) amnestic type on december 21, 2010
this is a precursor to alzheimers disease
because of this diagnosis i have opted to stop practicing medicine
this blog will be about my journey with this disease
please feel free to follow me along this path
i will continue blogging on organic gardening, green living,
solar power, rainwater collection, and healthy living
i will blog on these plus other things noted to be interesting

Saturday, February 3, 2024

alzheimers news-it will be gone soon

ALZHEIMERS NEWS-IT WILL BE GONE SOON

aduhelm or aducanumab is a monoclonal antibody that removes amyloid plaque from the brain
removing this amyloid plaque may slow down alzheimers disease

i received 18 months of placebo followed by 34 months of aduhelm infusions in the biogen clinical trials i was doing


aarp

biogen along with eisai produced and marketed aduhelm
poorly i musts add

the problem is they tried to get it approved before all the final research was done to show whether it really worked well or not
my impression is that they tried to use some influence to get it approved too early
i also agreed as i have said several times including this time with my interview with the ny times

biogen had at least two studies ongoing
my study called embark and another one that the fda was requiring them to do to really show how well it worked

this week biogen stopped all clinical trials for aduhelm and have pulled it from the market
they are giving the rights back to its original company called neuroimmune who plans on developing it as a shot that can be given at home 

now biogen and eisai are marketing the antiamyloid drug leqembi which probably works better than aduhelm and has full fda approval 
medicare even is paying for it also
it is also being researched to given at home as a shot where it may work just as well as infusions

biogen and essai decided to put all efforts and money into leqembi
it just got approved in china and may get european union approval this year

right now most agree its the one to use

soon to be approved will be donanemab which will be approved sometime this year
the two leqembi and donanemab will compete against each other

am i disappointed
no
i am glad its gone

am i glad i took it 
yes
since it probably removed all the amyloid from my brain

am i going to take something else
yes
probably leqembi when the amyloid plaques reaccumulate back in brain in the future
or
something else if it becomes available

since biogen is discontinuing the aduhelm studies and discontinuing aduhelm i plan to get them to release my final amyloid pet scan and my final tau pet scan so i will know where i am with my disease

i also would like to see my original amyloid pet scan i had done in 2016 when i started the aduhelm studies
and would like to see all the other ones i have had over the years i did the study

someone reached out recently for a spouse who was just diagnosed
it sounds like they has had a good workup and is probably going to have an amyloid pet scan which would solidify his diagnosis
then they will probably start aricept or donepezil to slow down symptoms
then
if it was me and i was early enough in the disease process
for me
i would seek out the leqembi infusions to potentially slow down the disease progression some
these infusions are not readily available in some areas 
you must though understand the risks of getting the infusions ie brain bleeds 
there are strict criteria for those who get on it

i was high risk for the brain bleeds since i am homozygous for apoe 4 ie i am apoe 4/apoe 4

the only problem i had with the infusions was the onset of ocular migraines that included a visual aura for 15-45 minutes then a headache for several days afterwards 
i have had none since my last infusion last year

we will know for sure in the next few years how well these antiamyloid drugs really work
they may work better than expected or not as well as expected

for me
speaking just for me
i would do it
i did do it
im glad i did
even
if it turns out it doesnt help much

im glad its gone and something is there to take its place

the organicgreen doctor

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