I was diagnosed last October after having a mild episode of numbness in June and then double vision in Oct and 3 lesions from my mri. I was started on Avonex and then had a repeat MRI after 3 months which showed a significant decrease in lesion load, one of the lesions disappeared but a new small lesion appeared. I have no enhancing lesions. Is avonex doing what it is meant to be doing?

Hi boscjo and welcome to NeuroTalk

Avonex, as well as many of the other MS treatments are meant to:

(1) Slow progression. You can still progress even taking Avonex

(2) Decrease the amount and severity of relapses. You can still have relapses on the MS medications.

(3) Decrease lesion load. You can still get lesions on medications.

None of 3 listed above is gauranteed. This disease is a crapshoot. Many of the Disease Modifying Therapies/Disease Modifying Drugs were not meant to help with symptoms, although, there are some who have found that to be true.

The MRI does not give the entire picture of this disease. You can be doing good and the MRI will show an increase in lesions or you can be feeling poorly, MS wise, and there are no changes to the MRI. Sometimes the MRI will match up to how you feel. You can have stable (no changes) MRIs but still progress.

No sure I answered your question directly but, unfortunately, no one really knows if the treatments are helping or if the patient would be doing the same off of treatment. It is truely a leap of faith.

Welcome Bosco..Nice to have you here..

What Snoopy said is right on the money. I've always been a believer in.."if u think its working, then it is"

Welcome to our community! I started on my Avonex back in 1997. I was diagnosed clinically probable because I only had 1 lesion but enough other diagnostic criteria to make that diagnosis. My last MRI, last year, still just showed the one lesion. My neuro and I have talked about whether we are looking at the wrong thing here since my MRI is unchanged. But late last year I had an episode of optic neuritis. So she is confident that I do have MS. But back to the original question. Does it work? I sure don't want to go off of it and see if it doesn't. Over 12 years and the MRI is the same. I'll stay on it.

Welcome! nice to have you here. Your MD may suggest switching you to a different med, or he may advise waiting a bit. As you saw above, each med is different for so many. Betaseron works wonders for my friend, yet when I take it, it sends my liver enzymes soaring. copaxone worked great for me for 4 years and then, it made me miserable and stopped. I hope you are able to make an appointment with your neuro to discuss how YOU want to handle this.

Good luck.

A new train of thought is that Relapsing Remitting M.S. might be better labeled Relapsing Repairing M.S. Our brains have the power to repair themselves. The longer the brain is able to repair, the better off we are. When it stops repairing, we slide into Progressive forms of the disease. Of course this is a hypothesis that I read about in the Rocky Mountain M.S. Center magazine. But it makes perfect sense to me.

Do the M.S. drugs work? I agree with the above posters....its a crap shoot. If you are feeling better now, you may have felt better with or without the drug....who really knows. However; the studies show that the drugs do help and have a decent track record of slowing any possible progression. It may be a gamble we just have to take and hope for the best!
I have been on Betaseron since 2002. I hate taking the shots and my skin looks like a mine-field of bruises, but I have not progressed since I began the shots, and I have not had any significant relapses. M.S. is still there and trying its best, but I don't seem very much worse off than I was in 2002.

Your question is the same that we have all asked ourselves at one time or another.

I posted about AVONEX and how it works in this thread on another MS board.

http://www.thisisms.com/forum/avonex-f5/topic4186.html

"Maximizing INTERFERON-Beta effectiveness"

jackD