Hi! Things here are crazy. Absolutely going around in circles. I have a full counseling client load and am teaching not one, but two psychoeducational groups. Also trying to get some summer stuff going such as keeping the pool clean and cleaning out some stuff for the animal rescue group’s yard sale.
If I did not know I do it to myself all the time, I would feel sorry for myself!
But, no, I am not asking for sympathy. Just a little slack. It has taken me longer than it should have to tell you I was chosen for the study.
As I said, it is APL-2. It is a complement factor inhibitor. That means, again, that it interferes with the series of chemical reactions that leads to the complement immune reaction. The complement immune system, according to Wikipedia, is part of the innate immune system and therefore helps to make up the older of the two immune systems (innate and adaptive). The innate immune system is sooo old – your line: “how old is it? “ – that it is the immune system in plants, fungi, insects and primitive multicellular organisms. Jeez. Leave it to me to get a glitch in something that should have been perfected, like, a million years ago.
Anyway, activation of the complement cascade leads to the identification of bacteria, marking them as targets and the clearance of cell debris. That would be great, but for one, small problem. Since AMD is an autoimmune disease, the “target for tonight” is our own, healthy cells. A little bit confused, I would say.
The chemical in APL-2 is believed to “take out” a molecule that is involved in all three channels or courses or whatever that are part of the complement cascade. It is pretty far “upstream” as compared to some other treatments they have looked at in the past.
Be that all as it may, the study is double blind. That means I have no idea which of four treatment groups I may be in. My “handler” does not know either. Also, the doctor who does my measurements doesn’t know. The only thing I know is I am supposed to “get a shot” every month. That means I am either in the monthly treatment group or the monthly sham – read faking the shot – group.
After hearing some of the problems people who get regular eye shots have, I don’t know what to believe. Why? Quite honestly, I have felt exactly nothing and there is no evidence I have had a shot. No discomfort, no puncture mark, nada. I go back and forth between thinking there is no way it can be this easy and I must be in the sham group to thinking they really are that good at sticking people in the eye with needles!
Weird talent but I am going to assume I am actually getting the shots and be glad they display said talent. Might as well be positive. I will not know for sure until the trial ends in three years.
So that is that. After three and a half years I have achieved the coveted status of lab rat. It may not be the study I wanted but it was the one offered and I am finally fighting back. Feels kinda good.
Written June 23rd, 2019