This Is MS Multiple Sclerosis Community: Knowledge & Support

This is month 2 of my husband taking Copaxone. Tonight when I injected in his arm he had muscle spasms for about 5 minutes after. Has anyone else had this?We use the autoinjector and set it according to the Shared Solutions nurse. Also, his left leg has gotten swollen, red and warm in the injection site. This happened the first week in his right leg too and the MD put him on an antibiotic because the redness and heat was spreading. What's up? Any suggestions?

I know that I have hit the muscle a couple times during injection and it causes spasm and a very painful charlie horse. I've noticed that the autoinjector settings don't always work for the entire area - legs mostly for me. Sometimes I'll pinch very softly if it feels like I'm going to hit the muscle - it sounds to me like it was too deep. I've only been on it for a few weeks and my nurse was great and made me very aware of the "learning curve" and encouraged me to adjust as needed. Hitting a muscle is a very painful lesson in my experience....

_________________
-Samantha
"Whether you think you can or you think you can't you're right"
~Henry Ford

I am no expert as I have only been on Copaxone for 5 months, but I also think you might have hit the muscle. That hapenned to me on my very first injection and strangely, the SS nurse would not say that is what might have hapenned. I ended up not liking the auto-injector and I now do manual. That way I am sure I don't go into the muscle by really pinching away the skin and fat.

Manual does take some getting used to, but it does become as easy as the auto-injector. It also gives you full control of how fast the liquids gets injected, it prevents me from getting bruises.

I would not hesitate to talk to Shared Solutions about the problem and if you would like to try manual injection, ask for a new visit from the nurse.

I hope that helps.