Drug Trial Screening

I had my drug trial screening today to determine if I can be in the trial. It was four hours of poking and prodding and walking and tests. They took 6 vials of my blood, and a little urine too. They have to make sure I'm not pregnant even though I had a tubal ligation done when I started on Provigil.

The tests were interesting, to document cognitive abilities. I had to put pegs in holes and take them back out, both right and left handed. I had to do a numbers test (did good!) where you add the new number to the previous number that was said. Harder than it sounds. I still have to get my brain MRI (with and without contrast dye) and then we'll see.

When we went through all the disclosures, the interesting items were that they have to keep the trial group and the control group as similar as possible, so everyone goes through steroid treatment (reduces side effects in the trial drug and may have some MS treatment benefits) and herpes treatment (many people with MS have some version of herpes virus even if they don't know it; the treatment can cause an outbreak.)

Dr. M was interested in the obvious difference in my left and right sides. My left leg and foot are quite a bit more weak than the right. It's not obvious in my daily use, but it was in the test. I know that since I shattered my left femur in 1993 and the muscle atrophied due to the knee and back injury I was recovering from at the time, I have struggled with this. In addition, I think all of my MS numbness attacks have started on the left side, and the ones that were only on one side were only left sided. They're just documenting my current status so that any progress or decline during the trial can be seen.