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.
Good morning Pam,
You've got some good questions here. Regarding the relapsing-remitting MS, Vicki wrote a post on the topic of different types of MS which you can find here. Like you, with each relapse I have gained new "issues" or disabilities and have not returned to baseline. Perhaps in the years before I was diagnosed, I did experience the true remitting part.
The prednisone taper seems to work fine for some people. It alone has not worked for me so I've always had to go with the high-dose steroid infusion. Information about Solumedrol can be found here. It's powerful stuff which has some serious side-effects but certainly does reduce the inflammation.
And you are correct, Copaxone is used to slow down the disease progression. How long has it been since your neurologist started the process with Shared Solutions? If it's been awhile you should certainly call them. I had to do the very same thing and discovered that their benefits folks found that my insurance would not cover the drug in full. That started a whole different process being referred to NORD for financial assistance. Definitely call Shared Solutions and see where they're at with your case.
Good luck and I hope you begin to feel better soon.
Lisa
Lisa,
Thank you so much for the information.
I think you're probably right about prior remittances. Looking back, I thinks that's what allowed me to get thru the past 8-10 years thinking that, yeah, there was something going on here, but it was so sporadic that I never really thought it was anything major.
My neuro faxed the paperwork on Monday so it really has been overly long. I think I'm just too anxious to get something going. I don't think insurnce would be a problem because it's thru Kaiser so he's a Kaiser doctor with many MS patients. I picked up the Copaxone at the Kaiser pharmacy and only had to pay the standad $30 co-pay while the Rx label itself shows a price of $2549.35. (Which, in and of itself, brings up a whole lotta mind-boggling issues.)
I'm off to read the links you provided. I'm sure I'll be back because, like it or not, you're quickly becoming my "go-to" man. (Sucks to be you, eh? lol)
--Pam
Hey, I hear ya about that price tag. Crazy!!! Especially if your insurance doesn't cover it. Yikes.
Also, it's great to be me. I'm glad to be your "go-to" person. Anytime.
Lisa