My MS Medications

If you have MS and you stumbled across this incoherent trite, don’t listen to me. I’m not suggesting any medications. All I am talking about is what I have taken.  Please seek out a plan with your doctor...not a crazy internet lady or Web MD. Every time I use Web MD, it says I have cancer...even if it’s just a hangnail.  

The Internet...it just makes you a hypochondriac.  

Medications I have taken due to MS:

Steroids - ROID RAGE!  Ok, I’ve never had Roid Rage and my testicles are the same size they’ve always been.. Wait, what?  Prednisone and methylprednisolone.  If I understand this....Prednisone is an oral drug for acute exacerbations and methylprednisolone, like Solu Medrol, is an IV steroid that is for crazier ones.  I’ve had Solu-Medrol several times in the hospital.

Diazapam - Woohoo VALIUM!  When my eyes went crazy with muscle spasms, I was on this loverly pill to help calm them down.  It helped.  Now I have two eyes that only move when I want them to move.If my eyes go wonky again, I'll be sure to talk to my neurologist about diazapam.  

Sertraline - My doctor thought I was depressed, or at least should have been depressed.  I was prescribed the Zoloft, but never took it.  I didn't feel it was necessary.   Some people do really need anti-depressants, but I felt that I had enough chemicals in my body.  Any case of the blues went away with sunshine and good times with friends. 

Betaseron - I had to stick myself every other day with this stuff.  I hated it.  1) I hate needles 2) I could never remember the schedule.  Writing it down was too much effort apparently.  Betaseron is an interferon self-injected subcutaneously (between the fat layer just under the skin and the muscles beneath).  No fat jokes please.  I had to switch around where I stuck myself, stomach, thighs, under the arms.  Living by myself, sticking my arms wasn’t happening.  I just switched between left and right sides of my stomach and thighs.  

Tysabri - This is the latest drug I am on.  I had to be checked to make sure I wasn’t prone to PML, progressive multifocal leukoencephalitis.  Apparently it’s this crazy virus that can cause death.  Score.  The tysabri is pretty hardcore.  I hope I don’t get PML and die.  I was willing to take the risk because the severity of my relapse at the time was pretty awful.  I didn’t want to live like that.  Once a month I go into a clinic and some really sweet and funny nurses stick me in the arm for my monthly infusion of Tysabri.  It takes an hour for it to drip through me and then I have an hour of observation.  This will go on for 2 years.  This month is my 1 year anniversary so I’m taking some buckeyes to the Nurses at  Samaritan Ambulatory Infusion Services here in Corvallis.  They make me giggle.  Hopefully it works, but I may not know until I’m under a lot of stress again.  I don't plan on moving across the country again any time soon.

Thumbs Up for Tysabri!

 
Vitamin D - I don’t really get that naturally here in the PacNW since the sun is MIA a good deal of the year.  The Linus Pauling Institute studies Vitamin D and does say that it reduces the risks of MS.  There are other studies specific to Vitamin D and MS.  I follow the work of Dr. Adrian Gombart here on campus to see if there is anything else going on with Vitamin D.  


Those are the meds I can think of off the top of my head.  I'm sure I took other things to deal with various symptoms, but MS makes me flakey.  I'm allowed to forget things.  Hmmm...maybe I should get drugs for THAT!