It’s been a while….i was on vacation last week – and what a great vacation it was!
anyhoo…so i went to my neuro yesterday for a regular follow up and nothing really to report. he confirmed that the MRI shows no progression (good news), he was disappointed that i haven’t seen any improvement in my gait from the Tysabri (bad news). Also, the last time i was in to see him he said that they would draw blood to test for the the presence of the antibodies that causes the brain infection – well they never did that. I assumed that 1 of the vials drawn during 1 of my infusions was for it. I was wrong…so that test still needs to be done during my next infusion and i’ll get the results beginning of October.
At that point, if the antibodies are present, i will be at higher risk for developing the infection and decisions will need to be made about whether to continue and tempt fate or discontinue and go on something else – decisions, decisions (as if it weren’t bad enuf that i had to decide if i even wanted to start on Tysabri in the 1st place). If no antibodies present, i’m in good shape and can continue on Tysabri.
He asked me if it’s working and i had to be honest and tell him that i had no clue. I suppose it’s working because i have no additional lesions on my brain or spine and no exacerbations recently, but other than that, i can’t be sure. I was hoping for a walking improvement – so many people say great things about Tysabri, “it’s the most aggressive drug on the market…blah blah blah”, but if you ask me, it’s on the same level as all the other drugs available – oh well...wha yuh go do?