Lemtrada Progress

I tend to feel badly/kinda dislike (dislike is harsh wording) when I’m asked how the “new” medication is working. The reason is that I really don’t know exactly how to answer that question and I really do feel badly fumbling thru whatever answer I give. MS medication is not like ur typical Tylenol Cold, Aleve or any other OTC medication you buy – u buy them and within a couple hours, your pain/sneezes/coughs etc (should) go away. All the MS medications promise to slow down the progression of the disease and then there are one or two that claim that some disability may be reversed. So is it working? I don’t really know…I definitely hope so…I certainly can make an assumption that it is and I go with that. One thing that I can say with certainty is that I have no additional MS symptoms and no new worries…I still only have walking issues, weakness on the left side of my body and my left hand closes up.  If that is a measure of whether or not it’s working then “yup! It sure is working”. I don’t think that that is a stretch, so I usually go with that.

its weird. I’m “with myself” and see myself everyday – indulge me. Most times, I think that my disability is slowly but surely getting worse. I have good days and not so good ones – funny, the good are almost always on a weekend. On those not so good days, my movements seem much more laborious and in my mind, I move a lil slower. Well, within the past month or so, I’ve seen a number of people who are not in contact with me all that often and quite a few have remarked that “u moving very good” or “u walking better than when I last saw u” or “u moving rhell fast” and “u appear stronger than last time”. At first, I was a lil sceptical (wondering if that person really knew what they were talking about), but the more people who say it, the more I’ve started thinking that maybe I’m the crazy one. Don’t get me wrong, I still have some “not so good” days, but maybe overall I am looking better and so is the medication working? Maybe it is.

Lemtrada has a laundry list of side effects(of course) and I am constantly being monitored so that at the first detection of any of them, steps will be taken to combat (I finally finished the dose of antiviral drugs I was prescribed after the 2nd dose so I think it’s safe to assume that my immune system has completely regenerated). I do a skin check regularly so that I can report any abnormalities as soon as I notice anything. Every month, a chick comes to collect a urine sample and 4/5 vials of blood that are tested to make sure there are no changes with either. Every 3 months, she takes an extra vial so that my thyroid functions can be tested because it can cause overactive or underactive thyroid (this is just so comical to me because it just seems counterintuitive – I feel like if it must cause thyroid problems, it should jes choose one and run with it).

I will be remiss, if I don’t mention here that my veins always cooperate with her…they muhbe get tired of playing hide and seek all the damn time – no need for celebration every time she comes over and she’s usually done in a few minutes or so.

I have no more doses to take – there are only 2, so at this point, it’s just to wait and see what happens. The last time I went to the MSCA, my doctor talked about sending me for an MRI in a few months, so at that point I guess I’ll have a clinical answer to “are the meds working?” If I have no new lesions on the brain or spine, then I’ll definitely be able to say, “yes, it is!”…I think 🙂