I’ve now done a month on Ampyra, my newest medicine. It is supposed to make me stronger and allow me to walk better. I wasn’t so sure at first. I got pretty dizzy when it kicked in, and it took me a while to remember to take the damn things. But then towards the end of the month, an interesting thing happened, it started to work the way it was supposed to! My legs feel noticeably stronger now. I can last most of the day at work without feeling like I’m going to fall over. It isn’t until the end of the day that I start feeling fatigue. I’ve had several days where I almost (almost mind you) feel normal! I felt good enough that I actually shoveled out my own parking space after our last snowfall. Granted, i thought I had killed myself afterwards, but with little rest I was able to go to work and not have any real problems. Now that’s what I call progress!
But it’s never all that simple of course. The day before yesterday I got my Tysabri infusion and felt a little fatigued. Didn’t think much about it. I got up the next day a little tired but feeling good. Took my Ampyra and went to work. I felt pretty normal until the Ampyra kicked in. Wooosh. Suddenly, everything was unfocused. Not out of focus, but like everything in my field of vision was as significant as the stuff in the corner of my eye. I couldn’t focus or concentrate. I felt like I was dreaming of being at work. I lasted an hour, maybe an hour and a half, then went home. Everything was fine later in the day but there was no way of telling when that was going to be at work.
I had a similar feeling the last time I took this the day after my infusion, but chalked it up to the cold that I came down with and proceeded to kick my tail. If two incidents aren’t a pattern, it’s still enough to take precautions over. From now on, I’m going to have the day after my infusion off too…
So that was a bit of a bummer, but know what? I’ll take that trade off in exchange for the positive effects I get through the rest of the month. Besides, who knows? Maybe this is just one more thing that my body has to get used to. It got used to the usual dosing over the first month, maybe it takes a little while for it to get used to the combination too. So a minor hiccup, but progress is being made! Not that I really want to continue shoveling snow…