One Year on Copaxone

[bhrungo]

Just had my one year anniverary July 4th, on Copaxone.
I did have one relapse last month and a few new lesions. Not sure if I should give it more time or switch meds....I was really hoping Copaxone would work well for me.

I haven't ever tried the interferons, but am afraid to with my history of depression. Ah well....life with MS....fun stuff!

[DianeD]

7 long weeks

Well, 7 weeks is where I'm at. Can't imagine a year, but I just take it day to day.

I don't feel better; actually feeling worse. I don't think, if this doesn't work) that I will move to interferons. The thing is that once you are on these meds you start to feel worried that if you stop you'll get worse!

Really, I know they studied this stuff, but frankly it is not convincing to me. I went 15 yrs with no meds. Did fine for a long time and it's hard to say if I'm worse due to MS or my asthma, sinus, thyroid problems? Really, I don't think the doctors know. They are just 'true believers' and besides what else can they offer. Symptomatic relief is their way of handling this.

Sorry, feeling a bit negative.

Diane

[Jules A]

How many flares did you have prior to starting Copaxone?

It is my understanding that it does take a while to reach full efficacy so I wonder if some of these changes might have happened in months before Copaxone started working.

Also keep in mind that reading MRIs isn't an exact science and imo I'm not big on the actual counting of lesions as different machines, variation of positions, different times, and different readers can result in different lesion counts

What is your Doctor suggesting?

[rubberlegs]

I was not aware that the dmd's prevent lesions. I may have out dated info; I was taught that the DMD's lessen the destruction of the mylin sheleath;

Some by acting as a decoy and faking out the misdirected T-cells.

Others by blocking the misdirected T-cells from the BBB.

Others yet by makeing the T-cells sick.

I just wasent aware of the lesion bit, I dont think C claims to do that -well it dident when I started on it way back when. Its real Good if they do!

[Jules A]

I was not aware that the dmd's prevent lesions.

I don't think anyone meant they prevent lesions but my thoughts if I got considerably more lesions would be that my disease is progressing and it would be time to re-evaluate whether my dmd was working to stall progression as I would hope.

[agate]

Everyone hopes that the DMDs prevent more lesions, but of course that doesn't happen with everyone, and who know if those who don't show more lesions while on a DMD might have had no new lesions anyway?

bhrungo, you've had one relapse and a few new lesions since starting Copaxone a year ago. If you hadn't been taking Copaxone, you might have had more relapses and more new lesions. You can't say that Copaxone isn't working though you can say that it isn't working as well as you hoped.

Why not ask your doctor's advice and then stay on the Copaxone anyway, regardless of what the doc says, just because you don't want to take a chance of having worse depression on one of the interferons? That strikes me as a very good reason to stick with Copaxone.

You're probably wondering why you should ask the doctor at all if you're just going to go ahead with Copaxone. You need input from someone with experience in the field. My guess is that the doctor won't be strongly in favor of any particular choice. The docs like to leave the decision up to the patient, usually.