Nicotine as ms help?

[Andipw3]

Has anyone read anything on nicotine as helping MS? My husband was reading on it. Articles from Europe and another recent one I believe here. ( U.S.). For example nicotine  gum for when your at a time/place fatigue or tiredness hits you. Chewing the gum supposedly helps. And there's talk of how it protects myelin. Not smoking.. But a patch or gum.
I don't know.. I'm skeptical so I thought I'd throw it out there to you all who have been so helpful to the newly diagnosed like me!!

[Andipw3]

Ok .. Interesting. Speaking of ann Romney, is she vocal about her medication? Last I read she wasn't medicating because the side effects are too harsh. She went " natural". Just curious as I thought I recalled she was pretty ill. I'm surprised she hasn't found a medication, like copaxone which is on the milder side. And I'm wondering if her not medicating will have implications for her center.

[immisceo]

Pharmaceutical companies are certainly the best funded game in town, but not the only one. Academic research at universities, research conducted with the use of government grants or directly by the government (In the US through the National Institutes of Health, for example), and research funded by the various MS societies and other philanthropic bodies would bridge some of the gap for continuing research if someone decided to continue with it.

Finding a doctoral candidate in need of a dissertation topic is really all that's theoretically needed for early research into a common, inexpensive drug like nicotine. It's when it moves into human test subjects that the extremely heavy regulation hits, and it takes years to tease out statistically meaningful results.

Who knows? Perhaps places like the new Ann Romney Center for Neurologic Diseases will be at the vanguard of helping to fund further study, a bit like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the enormous resources they've dedicated to eradicating certain diseases.

[Andipw3]

lol! No.. Certainly not.

[supermum_ms]

Hmmm well my one and only try of nicotine chewing gum, sure woke me up.......yeah i do think i was revived sort of but that was because it really tasted bad. Though my reaction to the mint flavoured spray thingy, actually had me gagging and dry retching. I was racing around for awhile then, trying to find something to get the awful taste out of my mouth, lol and my tongue was tingling afterward's.

Oh I tried patches too and the huge 3 inch square welts, bulging over 1/2 an inch high did make me more alert, not the way you'd want though. It stung and stayed raised for days and you could still see a square pink patch weeks and if memory serves i didn't even have it on for an hour. I doubt my over reactive immune responses would be what anyone would be looking for to tweek their fatigue, definitely not for moi.....

Cheers......JJ

[Andipw3]

Yes.. I think I read coffee too. Again I'm guessing caffeine being a vasodilator helps with blood flow. Maybe that's why it's good.. For the brain.. Helps w/ cognitive thinking/ headaches.. Eat. Not sure it's going to stop progression however. !! I wish.

[Andipw3]

Yes. I think however it s about $$ right? Pharmaceutical companies seem to have it all. So I'm thinking there's a lot of different research that never goes anywhere because of lack of funding.
I don't think the idea was to smoke.. But to use the gum or patch? Anyway.. I think there were articles in the UK and i think Switzerland. Supposedly the nicotine exerts an anti inflamitory and immune modulating effect .. I don't know. I suppose we never will unless it's thoroughly studied.  

[idntknow]

Take everything with a grain of salt. I have heard a similar story about drinking 4 -5 cups of black coffee a day helping MS.

I drink black coffee and smoked cigs most of my life, I been using e cigs for the past 3 years.

My last MRI looks to me as if the Dr will be changing my meds cause my head and neck looks like someone let loose a bottle of fire flies in there. or maybe moths LOL.

Anyway, try not to jump on Fad Magical remedies to help relive the symptoms unless your Dr recommends them. Don't hesitate to ask them about something you may have seen either.

Its just safer that way.

[immisceo]

The only articles I could find were using the animal model, which is the absolute beginning end of research. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_autoimmune_encephalomyelitis

It could take years to get good quality human research results published. Nothing I looked at is tempting me to take a drag on my husband's e-cig over reaching for a strong coffee and taking my DMD. Will be interesting to see if anything comes of it. Thanks for bringing it to our attention!

(articles I looked at:
http://www.jimmunol.org/content/182/3/1730.full
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3659034/
http://www.nature.com/aps/journal/v30/n6/full/aps200967a.html )