Some questions about Prednisone Taper and Copaxone

Good Morning.  I hope the day finds you all well.

I have a few questions about Prednisone and Copaxone.

When I wento to the neurologist on Friday he started me on a Prednisone Taper which I will take the last dose of this coming Sunday.  I guess maybe I expected some kind of small miracle. 

If I understand corrrectly the Prednisone is intended to shrink the inflammation in my brain, thereby easing some of the neurological symptoms that I'm trying to cope with.  Mainly, I was looking forward to some improvement in the areas of balance, spasticity, gait, right hand motor functions and speech (I don't ask for much, right?).

Having been on it for 5 days now I don't really notice much improvement.  Should I?

He also prescribed Copaxone.  I have the injection kit here at home.  He indicated that he would be faxing the necessary paperwork to the drug company and that I would hear from them to set up a time for the MS nurse to come out and help me get started on the injections.  I have not yet heard from them.

Am I correct in assuming that I will start the Coaxone injections imediately following completion of the Predisone Taper?  Would it be ok to contact Shared Solutions myself if I don't hear from them today? 

Is it unrealistic to have expected some relief from the Prednisone so soon?  Is there any hope of feeling some relief from symptoms relatively quickly after starting the Copaxone injections? 

I'm also a little confused about this whole remitting/relapsing deal.  Seems to me I've been dealing with all of this non-stop since June or July of 2008, with no abatement.  Instead, the symptoms have continued to worsen or new ones have developed with every little "episode".  None of the issues have really resolved themselves, instead I've spent a lot of time adapting to them.  I guess I'm wondering where the "remitting" part comes in.  Shouldn't there be times of peace in all of this MS wartime? 

Is the Copaxone only intended to slow the progression and really not help at all with symptons that already exist?  (I think, intellectuallly, I know that's true but, emotionally, I was hoping for more.)  

If anyone has some insights about all of this I would love to hear them.  I'm kind of floundering here, in so many ways. :\

Thank you in advance for your help.

--Pam

As a side note: due to my less than steady hands I spend a lot of time correcting my errors in in these posts and get mighty frustrated when I go back and read and still have multiple typos.  Just wanna say that 1) I can spell 2) I've never really suffered from dyslexia and 3) I apologize for the errors but fixing them constantly is becoming tedious and just a little infuriating, thanks for overlooking them.