This Is MS Multiple Sclerosis Community: Knowledge & Support

Hi all, I'm sure you get asked this over and over but I am hoping for tips re Rebif. How to minimise skin reactions and side effects. I will be starting in a week and a half but thought I'd ask early in case I need to go buy anything!

Take care,

Vx

I don't think you need to go out and get anything special. But you can look over some of the posts here for tips. One you will read about is warming the syringe up to body temperature before injecting. I tuck it in my bra for about 15 minutes. Another is to make sure the alchohol you clean the area with dries completely. I think it hurts less when I do these two things, but unfortunately I don't think it makes much of a difference with my site reactions.

I also employ this little trick to make sure the needle doesn't leak a drop of medicine when I take the cap off (you don't want to inject with a wet needle tip). Before loading the syringe into the autoinjector, I pull back ever so slightly on the plunger. Then I make sure I don't push down on the plunger when I load it. The same goes for when I manually inject. I pull back on the plunger before I twist the cap off.

After injection, some say rub gently or apply heat to minimize reactions. Doesn't seem to make a difference for me. To manage the flu like symptoms, I find that ibuprofen does the trick.

I've been doing this for 3 years now. Haven't missed a dose and doing quite well. Hope it works at least as well for you!

Hi Victoria Plum,
Great name btw -
I've been on Rebif44for 7 years this year. I still get big red site marks but they don't hurt and I make sure that I rotate the injection sites. Very easy when they are so visible!
I inject my stomach and my arms on the underneath. I used to try to do my bum but it hurt too much.
I have never had side-effects and only had to reduce the dose for a month once, due to liver enzymes being too high.
It has worked very well for me. I was very ill when I started treatment, having constant relapses and Rebif gave my body a chance to heal by damping down the activity.
On average, I think I've had one relapse per year with one exacerbation (more or less) and this year, I've experimented with diet and haven't had any big attacks so far, just the odd week with symptoms and nerve pain.
I self-inject as the Rebiject wasn't available at that time and I now prefer this as it's a more gentle way of delivering the dose.
It doesn't hurt if you gently prod your skin with the needle to see where the nerve endings are. Try with a pin - just gently prod yourself in one place and then move a very small distance away and see if there is a difference in sensation.
Good luck - and I hope it works for you and that your side effects are as few as mine have been

I am surprised your bum is the most painful! I was only on Rebif for 3-4 months, but found my Bum to be the LEAST painful site to inject.

If you find the needle a worry and the injection painful (ie the needle into the skin) You can get a product called Emla without a prescription, which is a cream you rub on 1hr before the injection, and it totally numbs the skin. I would not have been able to of even done it once without emla.

After 7 years now I'm kind of set in my comfy zone to go back to trying to get round to the glutes. I suppose I should but then, the red marks have gone by the time I get round to them again - although if I go through a stretch mark then I get a huge bruise but no one sees this except me and I don't look....if you are a man, I apologise for tmi!
Not at all frightened of needles. I have never used the rebiject as it wasn't available in Singapore....I don't know what Rebif is used for there - perhaps encephalitis? I know for sure that I was responsible for the Serono rep's new car. At $10,000 for three months supply, he was a happy man.

I wonder who has been on Rebif the longest? Perhaps there's someone in the US who has been using it for more than 10 years?

Just take different parts of your body that have some fat. Worry about this much later but most do not have problems with injection sites. Rather, I have only had <10 problems in ~10 years on Rebif