by Bobble43 » Tue May 18, 2004 11:16 am
Started Rebif 8.8 in March this year. Graduated to full dose on April 11. I did feel "funky" the day after injecting, this lasted a full month. Now, I seem to be tolerating it much better. A lot of the sensory stuff has diminished in intensity. I try to look at this long term---not how I feel now (as my body adjusts to the assault of the interferon) but down the road. Anything I can do proactively to slow down the MS is a positive for me. Site reactions include redness 4-5 days later. I stopped using the Reboject and was pleasantly surprised. NO PAIN!!! I inject very slowly, noticing if I don't take my time, it does cause pain. My PC added a antihistamine once a day to help with the site reactions. It seems to be helping a lot----still some redness but a good 75% improvement. I do massage the area for 2-3 minutes with the cotton ball to disperse the med, and have had no lumps or bumps. Also I have added the "saddle bag area" (sides of thighs) to my sites. No problems with this. All in all, so far so good. My MS specialist recommended that I take 2Tylenol and 3 Advil 1 hour before injecting. I did this for several weeks, and now am gradually decreasing the dosages. Being an "over 55" lady, I was very apprehensive about how my body would react to the interferon. I was prepared to be sick during the adjustment period, but it wasn't nearly as bad as I had anticipated.