“CDC estimates that 55 percent of adults – and 28 percent of adults with a risk factor for HIV – have not been tested.  Too many people living with HIV are being tested and diagnosed too late to take advantage of effective HIV treatment and prevention options.”
- Dr. Kevin A. Fenton, Director,
CDC’s National Center for HIV/AIDS Prevention

Today is National HIV Testing Day, now in its 17th year.  Given that 1.2 million Americans are living with HIV and one in five is unaware of his or her infection, the goal of this annual event is to promote regular testing and early diagnosis.

If you haven’t gotten tested recently, here are three quick ways to locate a testing center near you:

• Use the online HIV/AIDS Prevention & Service Providers Locator.
• Visit HIVtest.org to find locations and learn about different tests.
• Send a text message with your zip code to KNOWIT (566948).

Scared to take the test?  It’s perfectly understandable.  But there are good reasons to do it.  If you test negative, you can be certain of your status. If you test positive, you can begin receiving specialized care and treatment to help you stay healthy. You can also look to the 3,000+ patients in PatientsLikeMe’s HIV community for information and support.

More than 30 years after the discovery of AIDS, things are very different.  Thanks to advances in treatment, you can live a long, productive life with HIV, just like basketball legend Magic Johnson, who is now 20 years post-diagnosis and recently narrated an ESPN documentary about his experience entitled “The Announcement.”

So don’t put it off – get tested today.

Myrin P-Forte is an anti-tuberculosis agent that contains ethambutol, rifampicin, isoniasad and pyrazinamide. An anti-mycobacterial treatment, ethambutol eliminates certain bacteria that cause tuberculosis and is used in combination with other drugs to treat tuberculosis and prevent transmission to others.

At PatientsLikeMe, where more than 120,000 patients are sharing their experiences with conditions, symptoms, treatments and more, one patient with HIV reports using Myrin P-Forte to treat “tuberculosis in the lymph nodes.”  This patient rates the effectiveness as “moderate,” reports experiencing two side effects (red eyes and feeling intoxicated) and offers the following tip on his treatment evaluation:  “Do not consume an excessive amount of alcohol the night before taking this treatment… nausea/vomiting, headache, etc., will be experienced.”

If you’ve been prescribed Myrin P-Forte, we encourage you to share your experiences to help other patients.  PatientsLikeMe’s unique data-sharing platform allows you to share detailed data about all types of treatments, supplements and lifestyle modifications that have helped you or simply had no effect.

JOIN PATIENTSLIKEME TODAY

Have you taken Myrin P-Forte?  Join PatientsLikeMe and add your experiences to our growing body of knowledge.  Then, stay to exchange advice and support, research common treatments and learn from other patients like you.

In a recent series on patient choices, we’ve highlighted a lot of the decisions patients like you have to make on a daily basis.  A few weeks ago, David S. Williams kicked off the series with a blog about the treatment and career decisions that patients like you, and his mother, have made.  Kate Brigham then highlighted examples of the social and emotional tradeoffs you make every day.  Last week, we published the results of a recent patient poll where more than 4,000 of you answered questions about the choices you’ve made to tell (or not tell) others about your diagnosis.  (See “Patient Choices: The Shape of Sharing” and “Patient Choices:  How Open Are You Now?“)

Today, we continue the series by highlighting examples of the choices patients like you have made in the past twelve months (pulled from 2010 newsletter interviews).

Patient Choices About…

Being Open

“I decided to make my profile public with the hope that something I have experienced, have done, or could say may help someone else along the way. Because my family seems to still live with the stigma of HIV/AIDS and prefer I don’t allow others close to our family to know of my status, I guess maybe in a way it is my subconscious defiance to my family’s fears.” – memyselfandHIV

Staying Active

“I imagine that by running the races I do, and talking to people about the benefits of a healthy and active lifestyle, that I might motivate a few people to become more active themselves. I mostly want people who like me have MS, but are still capable of being active, to know that it might help their symptoms and make them more comfortable.” – Ramilla

Making Lifestyle Changes

“I can’t drive under no means because where I live you need to be seizure-free for five years and I never am. So that’s a challenge having to depend on people or public transportation. Plus, where I work my co-workers aren’t as understanding as people were when I was a child.”  – Blueeyedgoddezz

Tackling Challenges

“My biggest challenge of late has been to deal with my newly diagnosed diabetes. I am fortunate, because it was discovered in the early stages, so I’m doing quite well controlling my glucose levels. I’m learning to accept that there will be some high readings, rather than stressing over them, since my doctor is very pleased with my progress.” – Dirty Butter

Retiring

An interview with AlwaysLearning on her choice to retire from teaching.

What choices have you made lately?

Patients like you with life-changing conditions have to make choices every day, just like anyone else. These choices, however, typically have more at stake than how to RSVP to a party or even whether to walk away from an “underwater” home. For patients like you, your lives may be at stake.

I have watched my mother deal with three different types of cancers for more than 25 years, and the choices she had to make for me and my siblings to be successful were stark. As a single mother with a doctorate and two master’s degrees, she had to take jobs that paid less because cancer limited her energy. She took on enormous debt because she wouldn’t let her illness stop her from giving her children a private school education. Those choices started from physical and emotional hardship, then led to economic hardship.

Patients like you – and like my mother – have conditions you didn’t ask for, and your ability to keep a job and maintain economic stability isn’t just based on your talent or training, but also in your management of your conditions. Brought on by infection, age, genetic pre-disposition or unknown causes, these conditions factor into every choice, every decision—and in my mother’s case, which job to seek. We all make choices each day, but patients like you often have to choose between living well and just living.

One of the most important choices for patients like you is how to treat your disease. With your health care team, you try to make the best choice with the given information. The problem is information is scarce, untrustworthy or impersonal. That’s right, impersonal. What is a miracle treatment for one person could land another in the hospital. At PatientsLikeMe, we try to shine light on the information that can help each of you reach your best outcome. This is why we don’t just provide aggregate information, but allow you to access the profile of a person who is taking a medication to see if that person is “like you.”

The figure below speaks to the choices patients like you have to make about your treatments in a world with imperfect information. The chart depicts thousands of patient evaluations of efficacy and tolerability among major therapies across our 22 represented conditions. What jumps out immediately? That treatments for HIV and Parkinson’s are both more effective and easily tolerated than others out there for other diseases. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been devoted to research in those areas, and it’s paid off. Many believe Parkinson’s has a cure in sight, and HIV has, in less than 30 years, become a manageable chronic condition rather than a death sentence.

But what if you have other conditions? You are clearly making a choice between efficacy of the medications and the side effects that come with them. While aggregated data is great for directional insight, PatientsLikeMe is designed to let you drill down deeper. You can ask each person taking the treatment how it works for him or her. Why? Like everyone, you trust people like yourself who are going through or have gone through the same experiences. Only patients with similar situations can give you specific insight into what tradeoffs need to be considered when potentially trying a new medication. How will it affect my sleep? Is there daytime fatigue or “down time”? Can I operate heavy machinery? Will this treatment impair my ability to work in my profession?

These are the questions many of you are asking. These are the choices you make every day. My mother made her choices and has lived to see the fruits of her sacrifice. If we at PatientsLikeMe are going to help each of you answer the question, “Given my status, what is the best outcome I can hope to achieve, and how do I get there?”, then we have to continue to show the benefits of openly sharing information with each other. We have to excel at illuminating the real-world efficacy and risks of all kinds of treatments, and we have to help you connect with patients like you in a way that you get personal answers to your questions.

The more data you choose to share, the more we can all make the world of treatment information less imperfect and more personal. Simply stated, we’re all in this together.

The research team is very proud of how our team has grown in 2010 and the impact we’ve made in the academic community.  In 2010 alone, PatientsLikeMe and our work were mentioned in scientific literature more than 133 times.  All of this is because of what you share with us.

Yesterday, we highlighted some of the research work we’ve done in 2010 across our four newest communities.  Today, we’ll highlight our older communities.  Below is also a highlights reel of some of this work.

HIV

• Throughout 2010, we discussed the goal and benefits to measuring your quality of life (QoL). This concept of measuring QoL started in our HIV Community at the end of 2009. Earlier this year in a blog and podcast, Researcher Michael Massagli Ph.D. discussed some of the insights that are being shared by HIV patients through the QoL survey. For instance, we found that the average physical, mental and social well-being score of patients with a CD4 count below 200 is significantly lower than for those of you with a count above 200.

Parkinson’s Disease

• The Parkinson’s Community has always excelled in reporting their health status through the Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale (or PDRS). When answering the questions on this scale, members often asked us: “Should I respond when my drugs are working and I’m at my best (‘On’) or when my drugs aren’t working and I’m at my worst (‘Off’)?” Back in October, we released a brand new feature in the PD community that allows you to rate your symptoms as either “On,” “Off”, or in both conditions so now you can see the effect of your medications for yourself.

Multiple Sclerosis

• We hear a lot from you about the difficulty of adhering to medication. Early last year, our research team developed a new rating scale for patients with MS to assess the difficulties of sticking to their medication. We presented findings at the Consortium of Multiple Sclerosis Centers (CMSC), the main North American conference for MS specialist physicians, nurses, and researchers. The team is currently working on publishing these findings.

ALS

• Co-founder Jamie Heywood discussed our research into lithium in ALS at the TEDMED conference late in 2009. In early 2010, TEDMED released the video of his presentation where he shares our vision of the future of medicine. The team is currently working on publishing the lithium findings.
• PatientsLikeMe, in collaboration with researchers at Oxford University, discovered that when ALS patients get symptoms in their arms first, they’re most likely to get it in their dominant hand. This research was presented at the ALS MND Symposium and cited on this MND Research blog.
• We also collaborated with the Northeast ALS Consortium (NEALS) to examine the decision-making process that patients with ALS go through when considering whether or not to take part in research studies; this was published in the peer-reviewed journal Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis.

Here’s a short video highlighting much of the research you’ve helped us do in 2010.

Finally, I want to recognize how our team has expanded this year to better focus on what matters to you most.  Some new additions include:

• Brant Chee, Ph.D. – a specialist in natural language processing and detecting drug safety data in patient reported text
• Kate Slawsky, MPH – an outcomes researcher helping to develop custom surveys for our partners and our platform
• Shivani Bhargava – a research assistant supporting the team in ensuring our platform holds high-quality data about our patients

Thank you all for having a voice in research. There’s so much being learned from what you are sharing every day, and we are excited about what 2011 will bring.

Last week, we posted highlights from our December community newsletter interviews. As we close out 2010, we want to spotlight another question asked this month – one that is relative to all members, all patients (no matter the condition).  What obstacles have you faced and overcome this year?

To review all of our newsletters, you can visit our archives page here.

* * *

	(Amy) What obstacles have you overcome this year?
	(ellieGADsufferer – Mood Conditions Community) First of all, I became well enough to leave my local psychiatric hospital after having been an inpatient for six months. My anxiety means that all new things – even getting on a bus to go somewhere new – make me have severe panic symptoms. I now make sure I am out of bed by 0700hrs during the week and make myself go out at least three times per week, whether it is meeting friends for coffee or attending appointments. Otherwise I will return to “avoidance,” whereby I cut off all contact with friends and family, including calls and text messages.
	(kidneygirl1198and0505 – Transplants Community) I have had to deal with and overcome the struggles that come with tardive dyskinesia. Reglan has been black-boxed [with a FDA-mandated warning about the risk of tardive dyskinesia] over the past two years, but I took it for three or four years before that. [Read kidneygirl1198and0505's Reglan treatment evaluation for more details.] Signs of tardive dyskinesia may include: continuous and repetitive movements of the mouth, tongue, and jaw; facial grimacing; lip smacking, puffing of the cheeks; uncontrollable movements of the arms, legs, fingers, and toes; and swaying motions of the trunk or hips. Mine has gotten so bad that I have regular grand mal seizures from time to time, and sometimes it’s hard to carry on a conversation without looking weird.
	(mountain lady – Parkinson’s Disease Community) One of the biggest obstacles in my life this year was getting over the death of a very close friend.  This person became ill and died within a few months.  Her death made me more aware of how precious life is. Another obstacle was in the adjustment of my medicine for Parkinson’s.  My doctor wanted me to try a new medicine with fewer long-term side effects.  I tried it for several months but did not do very well.  I am currently back on my original medicine, taking a little more than before, but I have readjusted well.
	(andrewn78 – HIV Community) This year I overcame a hard breakup. It was difficult because I thought we were going to be together for a longer term relationship than we were (only nine months). It was also difficult to start dating again. I forgot how many people don’t know much about how HIV is contracted and that there are many people who would never date someone who is living with HIV or will date someone living with HIV but the fear of contracting HIV puts too much of a damper on the relationship. It’s a difficult process.
	(Tommy Maker – ALS Community) I’ve spent a lot of time this year getting used to the fact that I have become dependent on others. Prior to diagnosis, I sat on the local council, was involved in the organization of all types of public elections and I was a trade union official. These were voluntary roles which involved helping others. Yet, initially, after diagnosis, I had an enormous difficulty accepting help from others. However, I’ve come to realize that I have a loving family, fantastic friends and very supportive colleagues. I have found that many of them don’t know what to do and are very glad when I am specific as to what they can do for me. I’ve also learned that no question is too personal. I struggled a lot with questions about personal hygiene and when I found the courage to ask these most intimate questions, I found that the professionals were so familiar with the questions asked that, beyond the initial embarrassment, we quickly went on to find solutions. I have also found that when people ask questions about my condition, they are entitled to an answer, an honest answer.
	(Nates-Sweetpea – Fibromyalgia/CFS Community) Oh my, 2010 has been a huge year! I didn’t know how I was going to get through it whole, but here I am knocking on 2011, one step at a time. I had to rejoin the workforce on a part-time basis this year, after years of not working (not being able to work), but I had to as my husband had lost his job about 18 months previously, and we were facing bankruptcy! So I’ve been working part-time since last February, about 17 to 32 hours a week. We did go through bankruptcy, lost our home, vehicles and our high 700′s credit score with it. But you know what, I survived.  Actually, no, I overcame, with the help of a very supportive Sunday School class, great friends, and a wonderful husband and daughter.
	(kg10043 – Epilepsy Community) I work for the US Forest Service and, as of July, made it to retirement age still working. Two times they tried to force me to take a disability retirement. To keep working I have had to move around to several jobs in four different states because of my health. Not only have I made it to retirement age, but I am still working even though they are trying to get rid of me once again. (What a joke when you consider that the federal government has a quota for disabled employees). It has meant I have not only had to work in a variety of locations, but doing different kinds of work. Just in the time on this forest I have worked as the Oracle DBA in the computer shop, in GIS, later in Forest Planning, with a crew of five Soil Scientists, a Botanist and myself mapping the soils and ecological types and writing recommendations for management.  And now for the last two years I have been “unfunded” and doing all kinds of random jobs for projects in the office. Just this year that has included supporting the USFS in legal challenges as well as jobs so simple as filing paperwork and addressing envelopes.
	(cobebu8 – MS Community) For me, with multiple sclerosis and ADHD, my main problems have been the concentration to do what I need and want to do and fighting the progression of MS. I have RRMS [relapsing remitting MS] but since I have had it for 25 years, ever so slowly, it is progressing at the same time I get exacerbations. I have a new neurologist too, and he is part of a big group and getting through when I am having problems, is a problem. Plus, with only SSDI [social security disability insurance] and not being able to find a part-time job, I have had to stop taking some needed meds and not going to necessary doctor’s appointments (e.g. my eye surgeon/doctor to see if the optic nerve is still swollen and I can’t do a necessary MRI because the insurance company won’t pay.) So to get help for my asthma, I am doing a research study to get free care. I haven’t found one for MS or depression yet.

In December community newsletters (launched earlier this week), we asked some of our members to think about what they’ve shared and compared in 2010.  Below are highlighted answers from each interviewee across all nine community newsletters.  Thank you for your contributions.

We also want to thank all of you who have contributed to the 90 newsletters we ran this year, including the newly launched ones in our Epilepsy and Transplants communities.  Finally, a special thanks goes out to our newsletter writer, Amy Morton, for pulling these together every month.

To review all of our newsletters, you can visit our archives page here.

* * *

	(Amy) How has PatientsLikeMe helped you learn and share this year?
	(Tommy Maker – ALS Community) PatientsLikeMe has provided me with new friends-people who are experiencing the same problems as I am. I’ve learned that there isn’t a single question that won’t get a vast myriad of answers from the community. I’ve learned that we’re all very different people, and I’ve learned we don’t always agree.  I’ve learned that we all care enormously for each other and are very eager to help those who find themselves in the same boat as we are. But most of all I’ve learned that I am not on my own.  I’m not the only one facing a bleak future and not the only one who is able to appreciate what he has at the moment.
	(cobebu8 – MS Community) I really like it here in that I can keep track of all my meds with their side effects, etc.  Plus I like it that I can list symptoms and have a history of all of it to review and learn from and share with my doctors. I hope that my input on meds, therapies, etc., helps other people. It is good not to be alone.
	(mountain lady – Parkinson’s Disease Community) It has given me the experience of reading about others who are in situations similar to mine.  It has shown me that I am not alone.  I love reading the newsletters and the comments from other readers. It also helps to keep me up-to-date on any new suggestions or treatments. Also, I became acquainted with someone online through PatientsLikeMe.  We actually live in the same town, both work in the field of Education and have had Parkinson’s for the same length of time.  Getting together with her was a pleasure, and she introduced me to the idea of meeting with a support group, which I had never done before.
	(ellieGADsufferer – Mood Conditions Community) It is invaluable. I find the Symptoms and Treatments areas so helpful. I have learned (from genuine people who are taking these meds) that some of my “quirky” side effects and sufferings from the meds I take can and do happen to others and are not imaginary.  (My general practitioner and Consultant just brush the list aside and shrug their shoulders). I have learned that I am not alone with my illnesses, which is good to know, and I have also learned that there is “light at the end of the tunnel.”  I try to keep my profile as up to date as possible in the hope that it will be helpful to at least one or two members. I rate my Daily Mood [now called InstantMe] at least five days per week and always complete my Mood Map, again for the same reasons. Well done PatientsLikeMe and its members. Keep going, you are doing really good work and long may it continue.
	(andrewn78 – HIV Community) I love organization and having PatientsLikeMe help me to organize all of my medical information. I would like to have an ability to log simple notes on the PatientsLikeMe profile so every time I go to my doctor I can make some general notes (if needed) for that visit on my experience and what was covered with my provider. (Note that all users can now use InstantMe to add notes/annotations to your Doctor Visit Sheet)
	(Nates-Sweetpea – Fibromyalgia/CFS Community) PatientsLikeMe has been such an encouragement to me, not only in what others have given to me through sharing their stories, but also by opening up a window for me to be an encourager also. I love the newsletters that are super reminders of how to not get off track, and also how to be good to myself.
	(kg10043 – Epilepsy Community) I think I have been pretty good at sharing, but this has been one new method, especially with some of the health issues with others facing similar situations. In the past I have answered questions for people who had their first seizure or just questions, but with this site, I am able to communicate with others who have had the same operations, take the same medications, etc., and really understand things better (from a different perspective).
	(kidneygirl1198and0505 – Transplants Community) PatientsLikeMe has helped me so incredibly much!  I’ve made so many friends that I thank God for every day.  It’s just like, no matter what you have or haven’t had transplanted, whichever organ you need or have, everyone on here understands you and what you’re going through. I just really hope that people can say that about me.  It took me awhile, but no one is alone out there.  Everyone is going through their own personal struggles.  I just want everyone to know I am all ears!

Did you know today is World AIDS Day? Thanks to the many different organizations (including those like AIDS.gov) recognizing the day and raising awareness about HIV and AIDS.

Now a few years old, the PatientsLikeMe HIV community currently has more than 2,800 people with HIV sharing their health information to help others learn from their experiences. In honor of today, here’s a snapshot of what patients like you are sharing and learning about in this community.

DID YOU ALSO KNOW…

• You can all find patients like you by searching by CD4 count, viral load, years since infection and more.
• In a PatientsLikeMe research study published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, we revealed:
  • 63% of HIV community members on PatientsLikeMe agreed they had better understanding of the consequences of taking a “drug holiday” after using our site
  • 23% agreed they had decided to start therapy or counseling after interacting with others on the site
  • 29% agreed PatientsLikeMe had helped them decide to start taking antiretroviral drugs
• PatientsLikeMe research scientist Mike Massagli spoke earlier this year in a PatientsLikeMeOnCall^TM podcast interview about the benefits of measuring your quality of life.  How’s your quality of life been recently?  You can measure yours too.

How are our members treating their condition?

• Members in the HIV community are using more than 793 treatments, including prescription drugs, supplements, over-the-counter medications, life-style modifications, therapies, and more.
• The top lifestyle modifications reported by our patients includes avoiding alcohol, diet and exercise and stop smoking.
• The most widely used antiviral drugs (or cocktails) reported by members are Atripla, Truvada and Norvir; the top 3 supplements are Multivitamins, Omega 3 Fish Oil and Vitamin C.

What are their major symptoms?

• The 5 most common primary symptoms reported include: Chills/Fever, decreased appetite, night sweats, skin problems and swollen glands.

What are they talking about?

• Some of the top topics “tagged” in our forum discussions to date include blood counts, support groups, relationships, newly diagnosed patients and side effects.

Last Fall, PatientsLikeMe introduced our Quality of Life (QoL) tool which is displayed on the profiles of members in the HIV community.  By answering a few questions, patients can see how HIV is impacting them – physically, socially and mentally.  Today, this same QoL measure is used by thousands of patients across the HIV community and other communities, such as Epilepsy and Organ Transplants.

PatientsLikeMe Research Scientist, Michael Massagli, recently spoke with us in a PatientsLikeMeOnCall^TM podcast interview about the goal, outcomes and benefits to measuring your quality of life. Listen here:

“[In the HIV community], we’ve taken a look at the relationship between QoL and CD4 level and find the average score of patients with CD4 below 200 is significantly lower for physical, mental and social well-being.  People with the most comprised immune systems have worse quality of life, across all 3 domains, than other patients… “

To date, several of our members have at least three QoL scores on their profile.  Mike says, “Multiple uses of the QoL instrument by the same person over time helps researchers determine how small a change in QoL scores is meaningful to patients or important enough to evaluate how a treatment is working.”

Adds R&D Director, Paul Wicks, “We all know that measuring disease is important; tumor size in cancer, blood tests in cardiovascular disease, or frequency of seizures in epilepsy, for instance. Increasingly though, clinicians and researchers are coming to realize that these measures don’t give the whole story; they’re missing the real impact of a condition on patient’s ability to function. You might have high blood pressure but it doesn’t affect your life at all, or you might have a relatively low amount of pain (as measured by, say a 0-10 pain scale), but it could be interfering with your work life a great deal.”

So have you completed a quality of life survey recently?  If so, you’ll also notice a cool new feature on the site that helps you better understand how your quality of life compares to others.  When you take 5 minutes to answer the 24 questions in the survey, here’s what you’ll see:

As Mike says in his podcast, this is just the beginning.  Stay tuned for more about quality of life measurements.

As 2009 comes to an end, we want to take this opportunity to thank all of our members, partners and general fans for another great year.   Here’s a recap of some of the exciting happenings at PatientsLikeMe these past 12 months.  Wishing you all a Happy New Year!

Community Milestones
This year, the 15+ disease communities at PatientsLikeMe became an online home to more than 50,000 members.   The fibromyalgia community was expanded this past fall to include patients with chronic fatigue syndrome, and we announced a new community scheduled to launch early next year for people with epilepsy.  In addition to celebrating our communities’ awareness days and months within the site and right here on the blog (including Fibromyalgia Awareness Day, MS and PD Awareness Months, National HIV Testing Day and World AIDS Day), many of our members also participated on PatientsLikeMe teams in walk/run efforts to raise awareness and money in the name of their disease.  Congrats to the 40+ teams walking at events to support non-profit organizations like ALS Association, National MS Society, NAMI, Parkinson’s Alliance, APDA, and the MS Society of Canada. The real-time sharing and learning happening on PatientsLikeMe was also highlighted in the report series called The Patient Voice (starting with inpatient therapy for people with Mood conditions).  Check out highlights from all these programs on these videos from the Fibromyalgia, Parkinson’s, Multiple Sclerosis and Mood communities.

Many of our members have also become fans of PatientsLikeMe on Facebook.  Here are a few quotes posted to our Facebook page in ’09:

“I find this site so beneficial in looking for the tools to cope with the disease. People post research and real-life patient experiences of current trials and treatments. Hope is a major focus of PLM and I encourage others to join. We are strong in numbers and we have a voice.”

“PLM is a wonderful way to express what and how to live with this disease. It has changed my life for the better, have met wonderful individuals and we have shared, cried and grown by reaching out and expressing from our hearts, have made wonderful friends and have learned so much.”

Research Updates
If you haven’t checked out our research page or subscribed to Google Scholar alerts (92 articles referred to us in 2009!), here’s what you’ve been missing…

This year our ever-growing research team continued their analysis of the real-world data being shared by patients like you.  Awarded the inaugural JMIR award at Medicine 2.0, the PatientsLikeMe research team published pieces on compulsive gambling in patients with Parkinson’s disease in Movement Disorders, expanding the gold standard rating scale in advanced ALS in European Journal of Neurology, and “The power of social networking in medicine” in the highly respected journal Nature Biotechnology.

Throughout the year, the team has also shared insights via videos (like this series on the history of ALS or a recap of a study on the antidepressant Amitriptyline) and various presentations (such as an overview of our work at the at Eurordis AGM in Athens and updates on our lithium study at the International ALS/MND Symposium).  In addition to working on the development of our new communities, the team took additional steps to incorporate genetics into the PatientsLikeMe platform.  By participating in new partner studies (such as 23andMe and NEALS) and utilizing new product upgrades, including the launch of the Genetic Search Engine, patients are learning more about their condition and coming closer to answering the question:  “Given my status, what is the best outcome I can expect to achieve, and how do I get there?”

Keep your eyes out for more to come in 2010 as our R&D team rolls out more insights and outcomes measurements (like the Quality of Life scale in HIV), more improvements to the PatientsLikeMe platform, and cutting edge research in the peer-reviewed scientific literature.

The Business Side
As Ben said in a recent blog post, “we can’t have a business without you [the patient] and our communities can’t exist to help patients without a business.”  Throughout the year, the PatientsLikeMe executive team traveled around the world to present to industry partners, researchers, healthcare professionals and government leaders about the power of real-world patient data-sharing.  Here are some highlights from ’09:

• Partnerships: Earlier 2009, PatientsLikeMe announced partnerships with biopharma leader UCB to launch an epilepsy community next year and personal genomics company 23andMe to help people with Parkinson’s.

• Government: Piloted in our MS community this year, PatientsLikeMe members now have the ability to voluntarily report adverse events directly to the FDA; in fact, Jamie recently presented about adverse event reporting at an open FDA hearing on the “Promotion of FDA-Regulated Medical Products Using the Internet and Social Media Tools.”  PatientsLikeMe was also one of the collaborating organizations responsible for writing the Declaration of Health Data Rights and launching HealthDataRights.org this past June.  Finally, Jamie testified before the National Committee for Health and Vital Statistics, and gave an exciting rapid-fire presentation on the future of medicine at the Gov 2.0 Summit.

• Innovation: As a leader in Health 2.0, PatientsLikeMe executives are often asked to speak at various industry events.  Check out photos of Ben speaking at The National Summit and stay tuned for videos from Jamie’s presentation at TEDMED and David’s presentation at Bil:Pil.  You can also tune in to our live event tweets on the PatientsLikeMe Twitter account in 2010.

• Media Highlights: PatientLikeMe members, data and executives were also featured in media mentions throughout 2009, including WIRED, Forbes, U.S. News & World Report, Fox Business Live, Newsweek, New York Times, as well as Seed magazine, Nature Biotechnology and Neurology Today.

Happy New Year!
- The PatientsLikeMe Team

Every December 1^st, we join hands with the HIV community at large in recognition of World AIDS Day.

The theme of World AIDS Day this year is leadership — a fitting theme for the 2500+ patients who are leading the way through openness in the PatientsLikeMe HIV community.  These leaders have chosen to share their health data and their personal stories of living with HIV, not only to manage their own disease, but also to help better the lives of others with HIV.

For 27 years, HIV/AIDS has been a global epidemic.  Today, our online community has a few thousand patients whose experiences of living with HIV run the gamut – from the newly diagnosed to those who were infected long ago.  Approximately  334 patients (or 12% of our community) indicate they were infected with HIV more than 20 years ago (such as BrightonBear, an early member who shared his story with us in this interview).  Similarly, 84 patients indicate on their profiles that they have been living with AIDS for more than 15 years.  All of these members have a lot to share – both through data and conversation – about how they continue to face the symptoms, treatments and side effects, and stigma of living HIV-positive.  There are also members who are new to HIV, with 162 patients in our HIV Community indicating they were diagnosed less than 2 years ago.  Our patients, both newly diagnosed and veterans in the HIV community, are true leaders – openly sharing their real-world health data and personal stories about living with HIV.  Here are some interesting tidbits the community is sharing:

• How are patients like you evaluating the most popular treatments used for HIV? See what they say in our treatment reports about Atripla, Ritonavir, and Truvada.
• Ever heard of Coconut Macaroon Cookies used to “treat” HIV? A handful of PatientsLikeMe members cite it as a great way for patients to curb their diarrhea, a common side effect of their cocktails.
• That numbness in your hands and feet could be peripheral neuropathy, a common symptom in HIV. Patients are discussing treatments ranging from prescription drugs to lifestyle modifications to lessen the effects.
• Some of the most discussed topics patients in our forum include specific treatments (i.e., Atripla and Truvada) and side effects, common symptoms (like fatigue) and other quality of life issues like depression, relationships, dealing with a new diagnosis, and coping.

For the past two years, PatientsLikeMe has worked in cooperation with AIDS.gov, a government media program committed to improving the lives of patients with HIV.  Check out their “Facing AIDS” photo campaign in honor of World AIDS Day.

Thank you to all of our members who continue to share and learn. It’s you who are leading the way.

Today – June 27, 2009 – is National HIV Testing Day.

AIDS.gov, the one-stop access to U.S. Government HIV/AIDS information and an organization PatientsLikeMe collaborates with to raise awareness of HIV, has been running a campaign all month to promote National HIV Testing Day.  As part of the campaign, AIDS.gov launched the “I Know. I Took the Test” blog series, featuring videos and stories of people talking about what taking an HIV test means to them. The series highlights several HIV testing story campaigns from organizations such as the National Association of People Living with AIDS , POZ , Southern AIDS Living Quilt , The Positive Project , and others.

In support of this campaign, PatientsLikeMe recently invited members of our HIV community to tell us in a few sentences about their experience and/or thoughts about HIV testing.  Here’s what they had to say:

“I think it is probably the single most important thing a person can do for him/herself. The test will show if a person is infected, important knowledge no matter how it turns out.”

“Getting tested for HIV is so important. The knowledge of knowing can make a difference as to how you will live your journey in life.”

“Being tested for me caused me to change my outlook on sex, changed my life in such a way that gives me a opportunity to speak on the importance of being tested , and to share information about treatment, and that there is a life after testing takes place.  If we ever what to see an end to this very serious problem across the world we must continue to speak and encourage testing  in all walks of life.  Moot for me I think not, important to get the word out yes,yes, yes.   Experience is the best teacher.”

“I agree that experience is our best teacher. If you haven’t experienced things how could you give advice?”

“Knowledge is power, knowing your HIV status truly allows you to start living a healthier life, whether you’re are positive or negative.”

Want to know more about how to spread the word on HIV testing? Check out the latest promotions at AIDS.gov and, as always, feel free to share your own experiences there and with PatientsLikeMe.

We do not live our lives alone. We live our lives in collaboration with others. We communicate our needs and our goals, and together we work to achieve them. This is exceptionally true for families and individuals dealing with illness. Whether you’re dealing with depression, or pain, or perhaps the fear and stigma of HIV, or the impairment that comes from MS, Parkinson’s or ALS, what helps us the most is when those around us reach out and share their support and advice.

You would think that your ability to share would be as much your right as speech, but is it? It’s not clear that is true in healthcare today, nor is it clear that such a right will be protected tomorrow. Privacy is also a right – a right to not share what you do not want shared. It’s a fair and just expectation that the doctors and clinicians you employ to support you in your illness will not share your information without your permission. Today, I fear that privacy has become much more than a right; it has become a goal. When that happens, people begin to find ways to make it difficult to share in the name of privacy.

More than once we have been asked by people in the medical system whether patients are allowed to share information with each other like they do on PatientsLikeMe. In fact, in some countries you can read their rules in a certain way and reasonably deduce that this type of sharing is not allowed. It is vitally important that we do not let this become a reality in the U.S.  There are some that would take away your right to share because they do not believe you are competent to weigh the risks and benefits of sharing, and make a sound decision. Imagine being forced to sign a document before you email a friend on PatientsLikeMe with a question about a symptom? This could be a possible consequence of ill intentioned privacy legislation.

We are working to ensure that sharing is preserved as a right. We know that you share with us, and each other, because you trust that we will do the right thing with that knowledge. At PatientsLikeMe, we are working hard to ensure we earn your trust every step of the way. To do this, we focus our energies on ways to help discover new things about each disease here and support the research system. We do this in the spirit of openness espoused in our Openness Philosophy. We work to be transparent about our business model and our decisions, and try to be accessible to you to answer your questions as you participate in our communities.

It remains our hope that you are wowed like we are about what is possible when we work together to make our healthcare system, and our lives, better. We have seen so much healing between all of you here on PatientsLikeMe, and it is because we are all sharing together – not alone.

PatientsLikeMe was recently asked to testify before the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services National Committee for Vital and Health Statistics (NCVHS). The NCVHS Subcommittee on Privacy, Confidentiality and Security is responsible for exploring these aforementioned issues as they relate to healthcare, and ran a 3-day hearing to spur informative dialogue about the future of e-healthcare. I was honored to represent PatientsLikeMe, and the thousands of patient members of our communities, as I testified on all of our behalf at that hearing.

As I said in the hearing, openness is what is and can help patients. It’s what matters. We believe in the concept called “The Network Patient” – an approach that puts patients first by giving you what you need to know when you need to know it, and empowering you to act on that information. As members of PatientsLikeMe, you have chosen to embrace openness and take control of your health. You volunteer your health information, your experiences, your life – all in an effort to improve your care, support others, and move research forward.

Here are a few excerpts from our prepared testimony statement that expand on privacy, openness and the future of our health system.

“From our experiences at PatientsLikeMe, we know patients are aware of the issues. They understand and weigh the risks and benefits, and are intelligently making rational choices about where they are comfortable sharing information and how their information will be used to help. If we infringe on this right to share or speak (in the interest of preventing discrimination), we are preventing the flow of information and, by our read, acting contrary to the values on which our country was founded.

Privacy is also more than a legal concept, it is also a philosophical concept. A modern focus on privacy as a goal, not as a right, has moved the line to the point that medicine is slowed, treatments are delayed, and patients die for failure to have what they need when they need it. We have substituted real harm for mostly theoretical harm. We would even argue that the philosophical focus on privacy is a bad thing. We believe that openness is much more powerful concept than privacy in medicine, and one that gives patients the power to take control of their health…

We have to begin to work on building a society that allows the variation in human health and the variation in human condition, one that allows people to be philosophically created equal. We need to work on building a society where information is not used to discriminate, but to assist and support and improve. Restricting the flow of information will not advance solving this problem.

This is not a simple transformation, but we believe it is inevitable. The major privacy issues are not only about health records, but the invisible trail of “breadcrumbs” we leave behind us day to day in life. Health is not a separate concept. It is an integrated concept and, in an integrated world, we have to decide how to build a society that can handle the reality that not all are healthy. We need to work together to get the most productivity and life from all of us.

We believe openness can lead the way to such a society.”

The full testimony is available here and posted to the NCVHS website (along with audio archive of the 5/20/09 hearing). A transcript will also be made available soon. These hearings, and of course our blog, are open to the public for comment on these issues. In the spirit of sharing, please share your thoughts with us here.

World AIDS Day is a milestone in so many different ways.  It has marked the persistence of HIV and its impact on our world, but we hope that we are approaching a turning point where World AIDS Day will come to mark progress.

What this day marks, however, is that being HIV positive doesn’t mean one will automatically get AIDS anymore.  People are living longer and medications continue to improve the health and quality of life for people with HIV.  There’s still a long way to go, but progress is being made.

A year ago on this day, the PatientsLikeMe HIV Community was open to a small group of beta-testers, and one of them asked in the Forum if people in the world-at-large even take notice of this day, or have any idea what it means for people with HIV?  Now, we have over 1,600 patients who are sharing their experience, giving each other needed information and support.  And they are using PatientsLikeMe to empower themselves to show the world on World AIDS Day and every day that there is life with HIV.

To learn more about our online community, check out our “2008 HIV Community Report:  Embracing the Positive.”