MRI Scheduled
Finally I was able to schedule that MRI appointment! It only took three months. It’s scheduled for next week and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that all the paperwork is in order and they don’t cancel it on me again. Because of how arduous just scheduling this MRI has been I haven’t really had the time to worry about what the MRI is going to show. I haven’t had an MRI done in awhile and with this MRI we will find out if the meds I’ve been taking have been working. My last MRI did show new lesions but I hadn’t been on any kind of treatment for several months at that point.
The first treatment was a medication, glatiramer acetate, that was administered by self injection once a week. It was a horrible experience for me and I was only on that medication for a month. I’m not even needle phobic but those shots were incredibly painful and my injection sites would swell and were tenderly sore for weeks after the injection. I’d expect a few days of tenderness but not weeks. After all of that I was really scared and hesitant to start a new treatment and dragged my feet through the process. Even though it was an oral medication and I only had to swallow a pill twice a day I was really worried about the side effects. I experienced the flushing side effect just the first two days of taking the medication and it only happens now if I take it on an empty stomach. I only experience the crippling gut pain that keeps me in bed the whole day once every few months.
I haven’t really been thinking lately about what it might mean to have to switch up medications and how long that might take with navigating insurance approvals. Thankfully there is a new medication on the market that my neurologist back in Maryland called “tecfidera light.” It is chemically similar to the medication I take now but supposedly is a bit easier on the GI tract. No doubt that it’s probably cheaper and the insurance company could try to force a switch at some point regardless of whether or not the tecfidera is working for me. I’m also not sure how moving back to Maryland is going to affect my treatment. I won’t be able to keep my Washington state health insurance because they do not cover out of state medical costs so I know that I’ll have to get Maryland state health insurance as soon as possible. So I know I have some paperwork and phone calls to make in my future.
