Behind Blue Eyes: Continued Improvement

Today is exactly 4 weeks since the onset of this latest round of symptoms. I am happy to report that today, except for the ongoing tingling in my legs, I've felt almost completely normal. In other words, I got up at the normal time, got started working and managed to get quite a bit done without getting ridiculously tired.

Seriously, it's really nice to not feel the need to barf my guts out for 3 hours to compensate for sitting upright for a short period of time. I even took Rennie for a very short walk this afternoon at lunch time! Of course, we only walked half a mile, but the point is, we went out for a walk. For the first time in almost 3 weeks! Yahoo!

I also talked with the nurse at my neurologist's office today and I'm going to meet with her next Friday at 3:00. This is actually good news because I have plans for tomorrow night and I don't want to miss them due to side effects. While I wanted to get trained on how to take this medication, I really didn't want to miss seeing my friend Jodi, who's in town for a wedding this weekend.

So next Friday at 3:00 pm I'll be meeting with the nurse and learning how to shoot myself. Wahoo! Then, I'll go to my meeting and then, if I still feel ok, I'll go to dinner with the gang And then I'll spend the rest of the weekend feeling like utter crap. Good times.

According to the nurse, the drug takes a while to kick in, so I should be ok for the first four or five hours after I give myself the shot. The good news is, the whole thing is pretty flexible, meaning I can move my doses around to accommodate life as needed. This is a really good thing. I'm not even going to try to guess, at this point, what my schedule might look like. The medical professionals suggest taking the injection in the evening or right before bed so you can sleep through the worst of the side effects, but if it takes four or five hours for the side effect symptoms to kick in, I'd rather take it earlier so I sleep through more of them...

So, hard to say... I'm glad to finally have a scheduled time to get started on the treatment, though! Wish me luck!

Pharmaceuticals

Shortly after my MS diagnosis, I began taking Avonex. Although I managed to mitigate the "flu-like" side effects, for the most part, the drug unfortunately seemed to exacerbate my clinical depression.

So, on July 19, 2007 I switched to Copaxone.The Copaxone worked quite well for a couple months - except for some minor issues with injection-site reactions - and I felt much better.

Unfortunately, the Copaxone also exacerbated my depression. So I met with my psychiatrist to find a mix of anti-depressants that would counteract the debilitating depression I experienced. After spending most of December 2007 in a complete funk and - some days - being totally unable to leave the house, I finally stopped taking the Copaxone on my own. I immediately began to feel better and with some help from my primary care doc - who discovered I also had a mild case of hypothyroidism - I started to feel like myself again.

On May 16, 2008, I had my first infusion of Tysabri. With the exception of some anxiety issues, I've had no trouble with it so far. Still, it's early and the jury is still out... stay tuned for ongoing updates!

Comments

Enjoy time with your mate over the weekend

I just got back from Cambridge - what a beautiful city!!!

Good Luck with the new meds - will be interested to hear how it goes!

Posted by: Sara | July 8, 2006 03:26 PM

Thank you for having the courage to share this with us in such great detail. I am thinking of and praying for you, and wish you nothing but the best.

If I could somehow make this easier for you, please know that I would.

Posted by: Carmi | July 9, 2006 10:49 AM

Continued Improvement

Comments

My Multiple Sclerosis Diagnosis

Pharmaceuticals

Recent Entries

MS Blogs & Websites

Portland and Northwest-area MS Resources

MS Resources

Subscribe!

Search