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Erythropoietic Protoporphyria (EPP)
#SuccessWithScenesse
Our son, JT von Seggern has Erythropoietic Protoporphyria, EPP. EPP negatively effects the liver, results in vitamin D deficiencies and causes excruciating pain – all from exposure to the sun. JT has experienced the painful effects of EPP since he was 2 years old. It took us 9 years of extensive research and numerous doctors’ visits, including a trip to Johns Hopkins to finally get a diagnosis for what was causing our child so much pain. While gaining a diagnosis was a huge relief, learning that there were no treatments and no cure for EPP quickly knocked the air out of our initial relief. Exactly how does one go about protecting their now 11 year old, sports loving son, from exposure to the sun?
Daunting.
Through the ensuing years, JT experienced frequent pain, swelling, scarring, missed school days, and numerous rounds of Prednisone to bring down the swelling caused from exposure to the sun. Flash forward to the spring, 2015. The years of dealing with EPP and the understandable anxiety that accompanies such a cruel disease started to really take a toll on JT. By the time we picked him up from college at the end of the spring semester, it was agonizingly apparent that this cycle could not continue.
In May, 2015, we asked Dr. Silverman, the doctor treating JT if there were any new developments in treating EPP. There were none in the U.S. but Dr. Silverman mentioned a promising drug containing afamelanotide. I indicated that I wanted JT on that drug and while Dr. Silverman was sympathetic to JT’s plight, he informed us that it would be next to impossible to get access to the drug for JT.
At that point, the mama bear in me went into full fight mode to protect. Through a miraculous array of previous untraveled avenues, a happenstance meeting in New York, calls to Australia, Italy the U.K. and finally a contact in Zurich.
12, 670 miles traveled
2 cab rides
2 Trams
1 hotel
1 hospital
1 implant
2-3 months of vital protection
JT received his first implant of Scenesse in Zurich, Switzerland on August 11, 2015.
The protection that JT received from this first implant of Scenesse was nothing short of miraculous and life changing. A whole new world has opened up for JT. He only missed one day of classes due to over exposure, his grades went up across the board, and he gained back his confidence and left anxiety in the dust of his shadow.
…a shadow that was made possible by the successful protection from Scenesse.
The journey to successful protection with Scenesse is not an easy one, but it is the only option available until the FDA accelerates approval for afamelanotide 16 mg.
