Gilenya, Week Six-ish-to-Seven-ish

I've decided to stop counting by days, and begin counting by weeks, because I'm past a month of treatment and counting days is becoming annoying.  Also, I am not a very good daily blogger.  Also, I might not ever publish these entries because I am lazy, so it doesn't matter to anyone but me. Also because I have been off-and-on-again with the Gilenya a couple of times in the past couple of weeks because of infections.


So, six weeks in and the foggy-mindless-absent-brain-ness is fading away. Yea me! But, I am still fighting the sleepiness. Still, I think it is better to call this sleepiness rather than fatigue because my Multiple Sclerosis related fatigue is so much different. I haven't maintained the M.S. fatigue-free-ness, nor have I maintained the I'm-not-sick-because-I-stayed-away-from-everyone's-germs-ness.  I got sick. So very sick. I had an urinary-track infection at the same time I had a sinus/upper-respiratory infection. Seriously.  No, SERIOUSLY. I wanted to die. Well, not really. But I did at least once during the illness wish that I had the power to always and forever make every person who is battling even the tiniest sniffle or tickle in the back of  their throat stay away from me and everything that I might have potential coming into contact with.


And, since antibiotics and Gilenya do not work well together, I went off of the Gilenya while I was on my Z-pac.  And, I then when I was starting to feel better, but I pushed myself too hard, and got all feverish and general-sense-of-malaise-y again. So, back on the antibiotics again!  Blah!


Also, the day before I came down with the massive double-infection, I was at the dentist getting my root canal redone. FEEL SORRY FOR ME! Root canal redone- meaning the work that was done before wasn't good enough, partly because I was taking a disease-modifying medication which represses the immune system. Gilenya, you are the reason my dental work is more complicated than normal people! As if M.S. wasn't enough to deal with!!!


Impressions: This low white blood cell count thing is sucky.


Side effects: Frustration, disease, infection, fatigue (today I am calling it fatigue), pain in shoulder, crazy-high blood pressure, and I am beginning to think that I might have some light-sensitivity which is scaring me about macular edema, but I'll worry about that tomorrow. Also, I have started to use the word "also" too much.