New MS treatment helps Billings teacher: ‘It hit me pretty hard’ – Billings Gazette

Kelly Klein can lead an almost-normal life.

Last month, she was one of the first people in Montana to start on Ocrevus, the first drug approved by the FDA that's designed to treat patients who suffer from aggressivemultiple sclerosis.

Ocrevus was approved by the FDA in March, and Klein's doctor at St. Vincent Healthcare, Kris French, cleared her to receive it in April.

"Right now you can get really close to stopping (MS)," French said. "You just can't reverse the damage."

And MS can be damaging. The disease attacks the body's central nervous system, disrupting the flow of information from the brain through the spine and breaking down neurological functions.

Doctors are so excited about Ocrevus because it works by slowing the disease's progression and reducing the effects of some symptoms. Past treatments have worked to modify the disease itself.

"It's a great medication," French said.

Klein was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis on Mother's Day in 2004.

"It hit me pretty hard," she said.

She was in the hospital for five days, and for a while lost the ability to walk. After a round of tests, doctors told Klein she had primary progressivemultiple sclerosis, a form of the disease that systematically breaks down the body's neurologic function.

The more common form of the disease, known as relapsing MS, is marked by sudden flare-ups of old symptoms or the appearance of new symptoms, which are then followed by periods of partial or complete recovery.

In primary progressive MS, the new symptoms accumulate without ever going away, French said.

"They can both be really aggressive," he said of the two types of MS. "You just lose spinal cord function over time."

Klein's new medication comes as an infusion that she receives twice a year. It's still early in the process but she's hopeful about the effect it will have on her life.

Klein had been a classroom teacher in Huntley Project for 17 years when she was diagnosed. The first medications they put her on helped her get out of her wheelchair and gave her some semblance of normalcy. It was enough that she decided to go back and teach.

"But it was difficult," she said. After that one year, she realized she just couldn't do it.

Klein's MS will cause spasms and leave her feeling fatigued. Most troubling are the cognitive disruptions. Sometimes she really has trouble thinking clearly. It made being in the classroom nearly impossible.

Treatments for MS continually improve, and Klein feels like she's been able to manage her life pretty well. Still, the disease takes its toll.

As she looks back over the past decade and a half, she sees what the disease has done to her. "I feel like I've gotten a little worse every year."

She's discovered that if she can stay active and not overdo it, she remains pretty healthy and can find a way to have a mostly normal life.

"Walking is probably the best thing for me," she said. "The biggest thing with me is you can't make plans. It's like a day-by-day thing."

Nearly every year she's had the disease, a new drug has come out to treat it 14 in the last 15 years, French said. She's tried some of them, and some have worked well but carried tough side effects.

She's hopeful this new treatment will be a better match.

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New MS treatment helps Billings teacher: 'It hit me pretty hard' - Billings Gazette