@Tina_Gunn 

Last reply

Tina_Gunn

Medication advice

Hi. I'm new to this site, so hello first of all. I am after some advice please. I have been diagnosed for over 10 years but only just started on medication about 3 months ago. I am injecting Rebif and having some real injection site issues. I have red, sore, hard patches wherever I have injected. I rotate sites as taught but the patches are not going away between injections. It is getting to the point where I can not lie on my front and any tight fitted clothes are uncomfortable to wear. Is this normal? Is there anything I can do? Can anyone help?!!! It's not a good start and I have the rest of my life to look forward to this !! Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you Tina x
@Highlander

Hi @tina_gunn Welcome to the club. I'm afraid the only advice I can pass you is get in contact with your MS nurse that's what their there for. Or I do this call in the guru @stumbler he is the font of all knowledge related to ms. I take tecfedera which is two pills a day but has a habit of making you flush every now and again.

@Stumbler

Hi @tina_gunn and welcome. Unfortunately, injection site reactions can be a problem. Can I assume that you're using some form of auto-injector? These can be very aggressive and you may have more success by injecting manually, if this is something that you could manage. Was there some MS episode which preceded this late adoption of Rebif? It's just that Rebif is one of the original and least effective Disease Modifying Therapies (DMTs). There are now a range of DMTs available, with a variety of delivery mechanisms, from injectables, Infusions through to oral. So, you're not stuck with this for life, if it doesn't suit your life. If manual injection is not an option for you, or doesn't help, then contact your MS Nurse to discuss alternative DMTs. The latest philosophy is to hit MS hard and fast with the most effective DMTs. This gives you the best chance of limiting MS damage. The other, old-school, conservative attitude is to start slow, only moving up in effectiveness as you accumulate further damage. So, it's important that you do a bit of your own research into what is available. Then you can play an active role in any related conversations, rather than being told "let's try this one". The following documents give an introduction to DMTs and a fuller description :- https://support.mstrust.org.uk/file/store-pdfs/Disease-modifying-drugs-WEB.pdf https://support.mstrust.org.uk/file/DMD-Book-Final-WEB.pdf and this is a tool to help you decide which you'd prefer :- https://www.mstrust.org.uk/about-ms/ms-treatments/ms-decisions-aid And, it's not true what they say about Essex blondes, being an East London/Essex boy myself. 😉