Vastly decreased injury recovery with Avonex?

A board to discuss the Multiple Sclerosis modifying drug Avonex
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neltnerb
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Vastly decreased injury recovery with Avonex?

Post by neltnerb »

I have been taking Avonex since July 2012. In January 2012 I suffered a toe injury doing karate which ended up resulting in needing a minor arthroscopy to clear out some mess in the joint. That happened in December 2012. Typical recover time is 3-6 weeks. It's now 6 months later, and while it no longer feels "injured" in the sense of there being anything wrong with the joint, it just hurts whenever I use it.

I am a second degree black belt, and karate basically keeps me sane, so this is unacceptable for me. I also found in January 2013 that light striking to my legs resulted in absolutely insane bruising (nowhere near the injection site) that lasted a month. Could have been a fluke, but seems awfully coincidental. I've been taking hits far harder than that for 10 years and never once had a bruise that bad.

On the intuition that a side-effect that results in heavy bruising might also result in increased muscular inflammation around my toe injury that's keeping it from recovering, I am planning to stop taking Avonex temporarily. Overall the side-effects aren't too bad, but not being able to use my toe like normal is frankly worse than my MS symptoms at this point.

Has anyone else tried something like this to help recover from a traumatic surgery (I suppose all surgeries are automatically traumatic)? I'm not particularly optimistic, but right now my toe really feels like it's just like... almost healed, but can't get over some hump and just be better. It doesn't feel injured, it just hurts. I know athralgia is a side-effect too, can that sort of thing be temporary and perhaps not come back upon stopping Avonex, waiting for it to stop hurting, and then starting Avonex again?

How long does it take for Avonex to clear out of your system? I was guessing 4-8 weeks, but the actual number would be very helpful for gauging progress.

Anyway, don't know if anyone here has tried this. My foot doctor was out of ideas but thought this seemed like the most likely remaining possibility. My neurologist I haven't been able to get in touch with lately, and I just want to get this done with. I figure that if I get in touch with him and he says it's a horrible idea I can abort the experiment anyway.

Best,
Brian
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NHE
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Re: Vastly decreased injury recovery with Avonex?

Post by NHE »

I was on Avonex for 10 years. I have experienced slow wound healing as well.

http://www.thisisms.com/forum/avonex-f5/topic11590.html
neltnerb
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Re: Vastly decreased injury recovery with Avonex?

Post by neltnerb »

The post you reference looks scary -- the decreased rate of healing possibly the same chemical that causes so much of the damage?

I wish this was all a bit better understood; I have a PhD and I can't make heads or tails of this stuff.

Did you ever try going off for a few months, or is your condition such that you can't risk it?
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NHE
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Re: Vastly decreased injury recovery with Avonex?

Post by NHE »

neltnerb wrote:The post you reference looks scary -- the decreased rate of healing possibly the same chemical that causes so much of the damage?

I wish this was all a bit better understood; I have a PhD and I can't make heads or tails of this stuff.

Did you ever try going off for a few months, or is your condition such that you can't risk it?
I stopped taking Avonex around September 2010 since I was progressing anyways. The side effects just didn't seem worth it any more.
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