Aysen Slack, 65 and from Eastbourne, chose to pay privately for the pills once she heard about them. <\/p>\n
She said fampridine was “working well for me” but came at a “significant expense and I could not keep doing that forever” so she had to stop. <\/p>\n
Slack said it was “great news” the drug was coming to the NHS and she “would definitely like to try” again. <\/p>\n
“My mobility has decreased a lot and even in my flat I have to use sticks now,” she said, “it would make a huge difference to my life if I were able to improve my walking.”<\/p>\n
More than 120,000 people live with MS in England. However, only around 5,000 people a year will be eligible – based on the extent of their walking difficulties. <\/p>\n
Patients will try the medicine for up to a month and only those showing “clear benefit” will be able to continue taking it. <\/p>\n
Prof Frankie Swords, the NHS national medical director, said: “Walking difficulties can have a huge impact on the freedom and independence of people with MS, so this signal-boosting pill could be life-changing for thousands of patients.<\/p>\n
“Even a modest improvement could mean getting around the house more easily, going out with greater confidence and living more independently.”<\/p>\n
Ceri Smith, from the MS Society, said they were “delighted” by the news as the drug could be “life-changing” for many, allowing people to “live more independently or stay in employment”. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aysen Slack, 65 and from Eastbourne, chose to pay privately for the pills once she heard about them.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":830581,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[64,63,137,490],"class_list":["post-830580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-medication","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-health","tag-medication"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=830580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830580\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/830581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=830580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=830580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=830580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}