By Stephanie Froese

Saskatoon man feeling good after double-blind MS trial

Aug 24, 2012 | 8:02 AM

A Saskatoon man is on his way home from New York today to wait the results of a double-blind study on the so called “liberation treatment.”

Twenty-seven-year-old Andrew Dahlen, who was diagnosed with MS five years ago, doesn't know if he was one of the participants who just had his veins x-rayed or if the doctors also gave him the controversial treatment.

He won’t know the results for about two-and-a-half years.

The whole procedure took two to three hours to perform although Dahlen said, “It felt like it took ten minutes.”

In the New York operating room, Dahlen said music was blaring to tune out the doctors voices so that the patients wouldn’t know who was receiving the full procedure.

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“For some reason they were playing the all Nickelback station, so I got to hear some Canadian music, which was nice,” said Dahlen.

He said he can’t really tell if he feels different.

“I do know that I walked around for quite a while today, so I feel like I’m doing pretty well,” he said.

Dahlen, who said he’s fine with being a guinea pig for a good cause, is the first of more than 80 people sent to the trials in New York from Saskatchewan.

“A lot of people that I know that have MS and would like to get this procedure and would like other people to get this procedure so I’m glad that I was a part of it,” said Dahlen.

He now has to travel to Regina periodically for follow-ups with a doctor there.

The unproven procedure is not performed in Canada meaning patients in the province have to travel out of country to get the treatment, often on their own dollar.

The government put aside $2.2 million to send this group from Saskatchewan to the clinical trials in Albany, New York.

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