ALS

PatientsLikeMe Update: November 2007

2 Comments / ALS, HIV/AIDS, Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson's Disease / By

It’s been six months since we launched our first newsletter, and a lot has happened at PatientsLikeMe in that time. With the holiday season now upon us, we thought we should give thanks for the amazing strides made in all our communities. There is power in numbers, as they say, and we are grateful to every new member for increasing our ability to effect change. ALS Community We are proud to announce that our flagship ALS community has grown by nearly 50% in the last six months to 1,450 patients. We’re even prouder that it now attracts the equivalent of 10% of all newly diagnosed ALS patients in the US. To share what researchers can learn from this model for openness, our own Paul Wicks, PhD, will present a lecture on social medicine at the upcoming 18th Annual Symposium on ALS/MND, which we are co-sponsoring. Please stop by the PatientsLikeMe booth if you’ll be there! MS and Parkinson’s Communities Launched in late spring, our MS and Parkinson’s communities have also experienced staggering, if not meteoric, growth. We are delighted to report that our MS community recently hit a major milestone when it surpassed the 2,000-member mark(!) while our Parkinson’s community …

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PatientsLikeMe ALS Patient Spotlight: swhite.geo

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At PatientsLikeMe, we believe in getting to know the person, not just the “patient.” That’s why we’ve decided to interview a PALS each month to find out more about how he or she approaches life. This month we are pleased to feature swhite.geo, a two-star member. What are your interests and hobbies? Since my diagnosis, I enjoy helping others newly diagnosed and getting them on the right track. Then there’s the technological side; I’m always scouring the net for the next gizmo to help me overcome the challenge of life with ALS and keeping that glass half full. Being from Fayetteville, North Carolina, it’s hard not to mention the military, ACC basketball and summer trips to the beach, the mountains and Carowinds. But ALS certainly puts its own twist into all aspects of what we previously called life. For instance, my love for getting out and hitting that little white golf ball around has transformed into just being able to watch Tiger win another tournament. Other interests have been gardening, racquetball, tennis, beach volleyball, tinkering with the cars and going to any live sports event or concert. I’m also taking full advantage of the free movie admittance at the local …

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Business 2.0 and CNN Money Recognize PatientsLikeMe as one of its “Next Disruptors: 15 Companies That Will Change The World”

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PatientsLikeMe, the leading treatment and outcome sharing website for people with life-changing conditions, has been recognized by Business 2.0 and CNN Money.com as one of their 2007 “Next Disruptors: 15 Companies That Will Change The World“. “We are honored to receive this recognition. However, we know we still have much to do in order to achieve our mission of helping patients learn from shared real-world outcomes so we can all contribute to finding the best treatment options,” explains co-founder and CEO, Benjamin Heywood. PatientsLikeMe has taken an extraordinary position regarding patient data believing that openness and sharing, rather than strict privacy, is the best way for people to take control of their health care, improve outcomes, and accelerate research. The company has its Openness Philosophy posted on its website for anyone to view. PatientsLikeMe also shares aggregated data from its members in order to share data with the world, recently announcing their data repository in ALS, Multiple Sclerosis and Parkinson’s.

PatientsLikeMe Unleashes Real-World Treatment and Symptom Information to the Public for ALS and Multiple Sclerosis

ALS, Multiple Sclerosis, Research / By

PatientsLikeMe, the leading treatment and outcome sharing community for people with life-changing conditions, has released the most comprehensive real-world treatment and symptom dataset on ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease) and Multiple Sclerosis (MS). Previously, similar real-world information would have had to be mined and aggregated from proprietary sources such as hospital systems or insurance companies. Now, anyone can go to PatientsLikeMe.com and search for a particular treatment or symptom to find out the experience of over 2,300 patients. This unprecedented database includes medication dosage ranges, lengths of time on a treatment, reasons for discontinuation, symptom severity, and other key experience measures on over 1,300 treatments and 300 symptoms. Learn more….

PatientsLikeMe ALS Patient Spotlight: thornbal

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At PatientsLikeMe, we believe in getting to know the person, not just the “patient.” That’s why we’ve decided to interview a PALS each month to find out more about how he or she approaches life. This month we are pleased to feature thornbal, a two-star member. Where do you find joy? I find joy in my family and friends, especially my two daughters. I have really enjoyed every day this summer with my daughters home on break from school! We all enjoyed reading the latest Harry Potter book! Also, I find joy in everyday things like reading the chat board on PatientsLikeMe and watching my favorite soap opera General Hospital (one thing about a soap opera… it is never a repeat! LOL). During the school year when my daughters are at school and my husband is at work, I always enjoy watching movies, television shows, and reading books… all online. And, there’s always Starbucks! Or just looking out my computer room window at my little flower garden, watching the birds and listening to all the sounds of nature. What person do you admire most? I don’t think there is any one person I admire most. I admire everyone living with …

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PatientsLikeMe ALS Patient Spotlight: Bwana

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At PatientsLikeMe, we believe in getting to know the person, not just the “patient.” That’s why we’ve decided to interview a PALS each month to find out more about how he or she approaches life. This month we are pleased to feature Bwana a two-star member. What is your favorite time of day? My favorite time of day is late in the evening. I sit in my garden and listen to the sounds of nature and look into the sky and think about so many things. What makes you laugh? When I was diagnosed with ALS right before Christmas, my daughter-in-law gave me a baby book, and the title is “ALL ABOUT ME.” In this book, I can write stories of growing up and put photographs, and I’ve even put some DVDs of my favorite music, anything that would help my unborn grandchild know what kind of person I am or was. One of the stories was about my two brothers and myself. We had a cemetery behind our house that we used to play in, and one Mother’s Day, we had no money, so we took a bouquet of flowers off one of the graves and gave it to …

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Excessive Yawning or Constant Yawning in ALS/MND

24 Comments / ALS, Research / By

The first thing we experience about yawning is an urge to do so, one that can be so hard to suppress that we end up gulping down an extra serving of air when we’re trying to appear interested, or polite, or awake. But what if you yawned even if you weren’t tired, or bored? What if you got attacks of yawning six, seven, eight times in a row that you couldn’t stop? This can be a problem for some patients with ALS, and it’s made worse by the fact that due to weak jaw muscles they could dislocate their jaw.   That’s why I was particularly interested when a news report on PatientsLikeMe listed “increased yawning” as a symptom of ALS. It occurred to me then that we had in front of us the perfect way to investigate excessive yawning in more detail. The first step was to set up “excessive yawning” as a primary symptom in ALS, meaning that all new members would be rating whether they felt it was mild, moderate, or severe. Coincidentally, a paper had just come out which reported two patients (not with ALS) with excessive yawning after being prescibred an SSRI antidepressant drug. We …

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PatientsLikeMe ALS Patient Spotlight: Edwin

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At PatientsLikeMe, we believe in getting to know the person, not just the “patient.” That’s why we’ve decided to interview a PALS each month to find out more about how he or she approaches life. This month we are pleased to feature Edwin, a three-star member. What inspires you? For me, it is not what but who, and the answers are completely different now than they were before my MND diagnosis, because prior to my diagnosis I let materialism rule my life. God inspires me in more ways than I can possibly say. With today’s technology we have the good fortune to not only be able to appreciate and enjoy all of the magic, splendors, and wonders of our own planet, but those of the universe too. Every morning I wake up and thank God for my creation/existence, knowing that this lifetime is an opportunity for me to experience, learn, and give, and that it is just “a blink of the eye” of my eternity. Many of my fellow humans on the planet inspire me. I speak of those who, without any hidden agenda, give of themselves for the betterment of others. I still have much to learn from these …

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PatientsLikeMe Update: May 2007

ALS, Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson's Disease / By

This month is momentous because we’re celebrating a major milestone at PatientsLikeMe. We now have over 1,000 PALS in our community. Thank you for making PatientsLikeMe your home and spreading the word to other PALS. The more patients we have, the more we learn from each other. We are also thrilled to announce the debut of two new communities for Parkinson’s disease and multiple sclerosis (MS). If you know people with either condition, invite them to join PatientsLikeMe. We want them to know what you’ve already learned – that when patients share their data, it empowers everyone.

PatientsLikeMe Receives Its First Scientific Award

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PatientsLikeMe, the leading treatment and outcomes sharing website for people with life-changing diseases, is proud to announce its first scientific poster award. Today, at the 20th anniversary meeting of the British Neuropsychiatry Association (BNPA), Dr. Paul Wicks, resident researcher at PatientsLikeMe.com received the Association’s first prize for the best poster presentation, entitled “Telesocial medicine for neurological disorders: PatientsLikeMe.com”. “This is the first time that PatientsLikeMe.com has been formally presented at an academic conference and it’s great that the site has received the recognition it deserves,” says Dr. Wicks. “Over the two days of the conference I’ve spoken to neurologists, psychiatrists, and patients, all of whom were enthusiastic about the concept and interested in the development of the site as it branches out to include conditions as diverse as ALS/MND, Parkinson’s disease, and multiple sclerosis.” The poster illustrates the power of PatientsLikeMe and how it can help patients with neurological disorders take control of their diseases and improve their understanding and knowledge of treatments.

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