Originally Posted by lady_express_44

Joe, FIRST AND FOREMOST, get your teeth fixed!!!

Your neuro might not say anything about the importance of this, but I know first-hand how infection can cause our spinal lesions to be a problem.

I had "inflammation" in my tooth for all of 2007, and for whatever reason, did not connect "inflammation" with "infection". I struggled many months with my spinal lesions (never had a MRI, but they were definitely acting up), and I finally noticed the only time I felt ok was when I was on antibiotics. I was on antibiotics a fair amount, because I guess the infection in my tooth was causing me to get all sorts of infections in my body, and I needed antibiotics for one thing or another several times.

I finally grabbed the bull by the horns and had my tooth pulled. It was a molar, with a cap, and I guess the roots were rotting underneath because they had to be removed by a specialist who took them out in small pieces. I was none the wiser because it was under a beautiful looking cap (that just kept getting "inflammed").

Within DAYS, literally, all the spinal lesion problems STOPPED, and most of the symptoms went away.

GET YOUR TEETH FIXED, PLEASE!!! In the meantime, if you have infection, get on antibiotics!

I am glad you are not "apparently" in a flare though. Unfortunately, the "effectiveness" of most of the drugs we take seems to be measured by "new" or "enhancing" lesions . . . but that is obviously not the whole picture (maybe not even the important part) when it comes to this disease process. One good thing about having such a "relapse" and "lesion measurement" effective drug as Tysabri is that I think they are finally going to figure out that managing flares (apparent inflammation/enhancement) is not going to change disability progression much in the long run . . . then they can start looking at WHAT does need to be managed in order to affect our demise.

GET YOUR TEETH FIXED!!

Cherie