My husband was diagnosed with MS 2.5 yrs ago- he discovered it because of double vision and numbness symptoms. He was placed on Copaxone and (we thought) he's been symptom free for over 2 years. A few weeks ago he began having "graying of his vision" in one eye. After MRI it turns out he has 4 new lesions in brain and spinal cord. Though he is early in his disease and presenting with mild symptoms, his doctor has declared Copaxone a failure for him and wants him to go on an interferon.

His doctor seems to treat MS aggressively- he stated he is not happy until the disease progression is halted completely. Is this realistic? Something to shoot for? He says if Mike wants quality of life at 70, we need to stop it now. If two years went by between flare ups, would you say that is a Copaxone failure? The doc says he is just not in the percentage of people for whom Copaxone works- but I'm wondering how he can make that assumption? How do we know Copaxone isn't slowing it down?

We are new to all this and still a bit confused by all the information. He is happy on Copaxone with zero side effects and he is nervous about going on interferon with all those yucky flu symptoms.

Thank you for your help.
:-)