So after I was diagnosed with MS Dr. Amir gave me a grocery list of medicines, and advice about how to take care of myself. I started taking Betaseron. (For those that don't know, it is an artificial substance that replicates what my body took from my nervous system, that's called myelin. The idea is simple, I inject a substance that's easier to get to than in my central nervous system, and the demyelination is either slowed or hopefully stopped.)
There's a whole list and I don't want to sound like I'm whining so I'll just stop to say that I now routinely take a sleeping pill nightly, have a pill box that has either seven or eight pills in it (depending if I have a shot that day or not)
I was just going along, and thinking things were fine, and then the weather got hot. It didn't get warm, it was hot, and I really became aware of how bad I feel when the temperature gets in the 90's. I just decided that I would go through this time, and things would cool back down and I'd be fine. As luck had it, I had a follow up with Dr. Amir. She checked me all over and decided that I had experienced a relapse. She decided that I needed to have a treatment with Solu-medrol. She explained it was given in an IV that I would need to take over three days. It would take between three and four hours each day, and that I could either do it at the hospital or we could set things up to do this at home. Something about spending nine to twelve hours over three days in the hospital made this concept of doing it at home much better. So we got things cleared through the insurance, and set things up for this treatment at home.
I've included some pictures of how things went. (I hope it's not too graphic, I don't want to shock anyone.)
The infusion site is all set for the next three days.
Wrapped up, this is what helped the infusion feel better.
I wrapped it too when I wasn't doing the drip,
since the infusion was left in my arm for three days.
That's plastic wrap on my arm, I'm all set for a shower!
Once we were done, I must admit I didn't feel any better. In fact I felt much worse. I hope I never have to do this procedure again. I couldn't sleep, something about having something in my arm, made it so I couldn't sleep well. I later discovered that some of the side effects were lose of sleep, restlessness, and general aches and pains. Yup I had all of that.
It took about a week for me to get over all of those symptoms, but now I'm feeling pretty good. The negatives I see are that I really do need to keep cool, I really do need my rest, and I really shouldn't just try to gut things through.
