The very beginning...

As mentioned in the ABOUT US section, I was first diagnosed back in 1997 but I didn't start using medication to treat my MS until 2007 and I was given beta-interferon, which I HATED!

It was a once a week injection (don't get me started on what it was like to self-inject), but essentially it was like having the flu for 4 days followed by feeling reasonably normal for 3 days and then the cycle wiould start again... a year of this and I found myself sitting in my neurologist's room sobbing. He then offered me a trial - BG12 (now known as Tecfideria) - which I gladly went on. Long story short, I lived a reasonably normal life (mostly relapse free for several years)... then about 2 years ago, in 2014, things started to slowly unravel... fatigue set in BIG TIME, I developed a lactose intolerance (much to my dismay, due to my love of cheese!) and had a number of relapses.

Now, I want to make it very clear, I do not have the worst type of MS. My MS is RRMS (relapsing-remitting MS) and it is very benign, in the sense that I lead a very normal life. I can walk, move, work and, to the outside person, I look entirely normal... what you can't see is the exhaustion, the pain and the struggle to keep walking. No doubt as this blog continues, a greater insight into my symptoms will become apparent.

Fast forward to 2016.... I had made the decision the year before to stop teaching full time and to go into business with Nick. This was going well and we were becoming quite a little power couple. Then a month before we were due to head to one of the biggest trade fairs I noticed my eye sight was getting blurry and I felt I was coming down with something... which never eventuated to anything other than feeling run down. I took myself off to my neurologist (who I affectionally call my doctor-dad) and with a MRI confirmation, ascertained I was indeed having a relapse, optic neuritis. After a course of steroids and two weeks rest, I headed off to Basel, Switzerland for a whirlwind 10 days of work. On my return and after two weeks of work, I noticed the familiar symptoms of blurry vision and weakness in my legs - shuffling around like a drunk old women was a dead giveaway that something wasn't quite right. Again, with MRI confirmation it was deduced I was again in relapse with a couple of new lesions showing up deep in my brain (I'll expand more on this in my next blog entry).

This brings us to the present of having to decide what next... it was clear I had to change my medication from my beloved BG-12 to either Tysabri or Lemtrada....