Johns Hopkins has found a way to erase a faulty immune system

Reported by: Barbara Smith ABC 4 News

SALT LAKE CITY (ABC 4 News) A Utah woman is about to being a medical journey that she hopes will save her life. Michelle Colledge has Multiple Sclerosis, a disease that causes paralysis, blindness, and death. Johns Hopkins is testing a new treatment for this debilitating disease that so far, is dramatically effective. Michelle Colledge has been accepted as part of the study of this new and very aggressive treatment.

Michelle was diagnosed on Valentines Day 2007. She says, “The only way to describe those first couple of months was absolute terror, and crying at night for several hours, and just thinking my life was over.” The young mother developed lesions on her brain and spine, her own immune system, charged with protecting her, had turned against her and become the enemy. Dr. Adam Kaplin, M.D. from Johns Hopkins explains; “What these people have, are these periods of time where their brains and spinal cords are under attack and their optic nerve.” He says no one knows why it happens, but doctors believe the immune system is tricked in reaction exposure to bacteria, viruses, or even a vitamin D deficiency. Read the rest of the story