As of 6/12/16:
3,330 days = 9yrs and 12 days.
Final day of my daily 20-mg glatiramer acetate injection this morning!! Bittersweet goodbye to Copaxone & Glatopa, you served my medical needs so well. Crossing fingers my body tolerates the switch to Tecfidera, an oral multiple sclerosis medication.
6/14/2016 AM:
The initial 7-day 120-mg capsules arrive as promised. As you may notice, I had a small lack of protection with a disease modifying medication (I had been worried about having this all along).
I have to say the first week of Tecfidera was interesting. One of Tecfidera's common side affects is how it may cause flushing. Surprisingly, I did end up experiencing flushing, four hours after taking the initial AM dose of the medication. It was amazing how quickly the flushing hit me, as though I had been embarrassed which tends to cause my face to feel warm and my cheeks turn a little red. I was not sure how long I would feel this sensation, but it ended up lasting for an hour. I was told the flushing could occur for the first month or so while the body was getting use to the medication, but the experience differs for everyone. In the thoughts to minimize the flushing, we decided to purchase some 80-mg baby aspirin to take 30-min before (specialty pharmacy pharmacist advised on this option), but discontinued taking the aspirin after a couple days. Luckily, I experienced flushing just that one time, even when I started the higher 240-mg regular dose capsules the evening of 6/21/16.
7/5/16:
Past 7-10 days I had felt a tingling sensation - first felt on the right side of my lip and progressed to the right side of my tongue (feeling felt is similar to what one may feel after having dental work done and when that numbing medication is wearing off). The soles of my feet eventually felt the tingling as well. Other than the new addition of Tecfidera, everything else is the same. I had called Kaiser's Specialty Pharmacy in Daly City about my symptoms. They explained how they didn't have any reports and advised me to contact my neurologist. Unfortunately, my neurologist was on vacation for a week, which began 7/5.
7/6 PM:
Feet are not cold, but with the tingling/numb sensation they feel cold.
7/8:
More numb feeling. PM - while brushing teeth, mouth felt more numb.
7/29:
Brain MRI, with & without contrast agent (gadolinium); Results indicate an active lesion, but small, and explains my symptoms that have slowly gotten better over after all this time. I am hopeful my symptoms will be gone and things will go back to normal.
