Newly diagnosed with MS

Hello there Trev

Sorry to hear of your diagnoses. Diet and exercise is definitely a wise choice for your overall well being, for anyone, but your doctor wants you to do one of the MS drugs because they are shown to help delay the progression of the disease. I would definately choose one of them. The Copaxone is a good choice people say, but i am all about convenience. My first MS therapy i chose was Rebif. That is a sub cutaneous shot 3 x's a week. I kept getting flair ups on the rebif, so after 14 months, i decided to try Tysabri. That is a IV once a month, which i loved, but the risk is greater with the tysabri. I stayed on it 2 years. After my visit with my neuro that year he informed me of the stats that came out from the drug company, (you can get a brain infection and become severely disabled or die) i decided i did not want to take the risk anymore, i chose to go on Avonex. That is an Intra Muscular shot once a week (big needle in the muscle, yikes, lol). I am fortunate i have a dear friend who is a nurse and she injects me (could never do that shot myself). Then there is Betaseron. Don't know to much about that one, but i think it is an every other day shot. Never tried that one, but if i am correct, i think it is one of the CRAB drugs that have been on the market the longest. The choice is yours...Do some research on them, thats what i did and made my choice from there, but it is definitely a good idea to be on one of them. Copaxone has no side effects where as the others have flu like symptoms. I have been fortunate because i haven't really experienced to many side effects. For me, being on three of the disease modifying therapies, Rebif was the worst. Terrible body aches. I hope this helps.

Good Luck. You"ll be fine.

Lynn

Very sorry to hear about your situation. Spend all the time you can learning
about the disease.

My best friend, and my wifes best friend both have it.

If you ever need someone to talk to, im sure my friend would be happy
to help, since he is a retired Paramedic, and his knowledge of medicine
is quite impressive.

I was diagnosed a year ago and I understand the shock you're going through. It's a tough time and there are important decisions to make. I remember a lot of the research that I found on lifestyle changes and healthy living and found a lot of good in them but decided, for me, that years down the road I wanted to know I'd done all that I could to keep myself healthy. Why not try to maintain your health in as many ways as possible? There are so many things to try to help maintain health and while the decisions of which to follow can be daunting I think the variety is a real blessing. There are so many diseases with too few options. Following a healthy lifestyle is definitely advisable but I chose to start on the medication, Copaxone, so that if I did get another relapse later on I wouldnt have to ask myself if I could have done more to prevent it. I found Copaxone to be very manageable. I take the quick shot before bed, slap on an icepack, and it makes no other dent on my life than a little bit longer of a before-bed routine. Talk to your doctor about the options, but why not use as much of the arsenal against MS that we have?