some ms patients take interferon for many years. sometimes 4 years or more.
how do they live through that? they use different interferons than we do and im trying
to compare their dosage level and side effect level to ours. one study i looked at said that a dose of 30 micrograms/week of IM interferon beta-1a was well tolerated but a dose of 60 micrograms/week caused severe flulike symptoms and elevated liver enzymes. im assuming that this type is similar to infergen, really strong.
it seems like pegasys and pegintron dosages are somewhat similar. 180mcg/week pegasys is maybe like 120 pegintron (based on reported side effects and my wild guess) (for a 170 lb person)
based on general complaints about infergen dosing, it seems to be much stronger.
recommended dosing is 3 to 9mcg, 3 times a week. this would only be 27mcg/week
on the high dose side. for relapsers they recommend 9 to 15, 3 times a week which still totals
only 45 mcg/week comparatively a small dose with a lot of bad side effects.
does anyone have a familiarity with the different manufacturing strengths that would account for
this variability of effect? or is is just that each molecule is fairly different from the other and
gives different reactions at different dosages.
does any one know people with multiple sclerosis who took
harsh doses for extended periods? how do they fare? how about the hep b versions of interferon?
do those patients get hammered like we do? what about skin cancer patients?