By Julie Stachowiak, Ph.D., About.com Guide September 13, 2011
There is a great deal of science that goes into the treatment decisions that a doctor makes concerning his or her patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). In clinical neurology around MS, there is also a healthy dollop of lessons learned from other patients, as well as judgment calls about the treatments that are best for individual patients based on non-clinical factors (such as likelihood to adhere to a specific treatment plan and lifestyle factors). There is also a great deal of guesswork.
MS, as we know, is not an easy disease to live with. Nor is it an easy disease to treat. There are many ways that neurologists can approach a single problem that an MS patient presents with. When a patient comes in with a cornucopia of issues and symptoms that they want to address, as most of us do, it requires that the doc balances different factors to come up with a treatment regimen that is not only (hopefully) effective, but that the patient can live with.
All of this is to say that different doctors will almost certainly recommend different treatment approaches to the same patient.
To really get to the point that I am trying to make: Get a second opinion if you are not 100% convinced that you are doing exactly the precise thing that is best for you. Or if you just want to see what else is out there. Or if you just want to test my theory about different docs prescribing different stuff.
CONTINUE reading Julie’s article
There is a great deal of science that goes into the treatment decisions that a doctor makes concerning his or her patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). In clinical neurology around MS, there is also a healthy dollop of lessons learned from other patients, as well as judgment calls about the treatments that are best for individual patients based on non-clinical factors (such as likelihood to adhere to a specific treatment plan and lifestyle factors). There is also a great deal of guesswork.
MS, as we know, is not an easy disease to live with. Nor is it an easy disease to treat. There are many ways that neurologists can approach a single problem that an MS patient presents with. When a patient comes in with a cornucopia of issues and symptoms that they want to address, as most of us do, it requires that the doc balances different factors to come up with a treatment regimen that is not only (hopefully) effective, but that the patient can live with.
All of this is to say that different doctors will almost certainly recommend different treatment approaches to the same patient.
To really get to the point that I am trying to make: Get a second opinion if you are not 100% convinced that you are doing exactly the precise thing that is best for you. Or if you just want to see what else is out there. Or if you just want to test my theory about different docs prescribing different stuff.
CONTINUE reading Julie’s article
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