It’s prolly the strongest drug out there…it’s also the most expensive one I’ve taken. When I opened the “cost” statement, I swear I almost fell off Soca Scooter – the length of time for approval suddenly made sense. The simplest way to explain how it works is to say it depletes the Tcells in the immune system. The thought is that when the immune system regenerates, it’ll be with “good” cells that will not attack the body and in turn cause nerve damage (it’s actually a drug that’s been on the market for a while but was repurposed to treat MS). So for a while after treatment, I was sure to protect myself best I could from getting sick/catching anything cuz there was no telling if/how/how long i’d take to fight it off (so jes in case, I didn’t go Miami carnival last year) and my doc had me on anti-viral drugs till January.
Of course, like all the drugs out there, it comes hand in hand with its laundry list of side effects. I won’t bore u with them but I will tell u that a nurse comes to my apartment monthly to collect 4 (sometimes 5) vials of blood and a cup of urine – this will continue for 4 years. Oh. I will mention that Lemtrada may cause an overactive OR under active thyroid. For the life of me, I can’t rationalize how it could cause ONE or THE OTHER…shouldn’t it only cause one???
- Not trying to put goat mout(h) on mehself, but with my luck if I were to develop one, it would be under active and I’ll gain weight
On the last day of treatment I called my manager to let her know that all was well and she commented that I sounded better than I had in the previous few months. Interestingly, 4 other people said the same thing to me and looking back I realised that it had actually been a stressful few months leading up to the treatment.
I got a call from Robyn at the MSCA bout 2 months ago and she said that lab work showed that even tho my numbers were increasing, they weren’t increasing fast enuf so they wanted me back on the antiviral drugs. “GREAT!” She assured me that I didn’t have to be concerned; it was just a precaution.
Good news though – I had a physical done 2 weeks ago and my blood count is now back to normal…till Octoberish (when I go back in for round 2) – “happy happy” times.
