He told me they are hoping to release a higher dose with extended release some time next year so you only have to do the shot every other week. Yippie - only 24 hrs of side effect aches a month when it happens. I know I'll take 50% less "ugh" hours!

There's so many new drugs and alterations of old drugs coming, it's amazing!!

Yep, we're still guinea pigs, after all these years, but we MSers
must keep the big pharma economy going..

i just started avonex last week, still easing into it, haven't experienced side effects yet, but have only taken 2 partial doses

I am coming up on 2 years of it. I was on the powder that I mixed myself and felt like garbage for the following day. I have been on the new injection pen for 6 months now and it is great. I only seem to have the flu side effects now for about 12 hrs - mainly aches which I can live with. if I delay my dose by a day or more. I just had my 3rd MRI since dx!d Monday and am hoping everything is ok. Good luck with the Avonex.

while not the sole reason, I have a suspicious mind that a lot of these new formulations and drugs is all due to the fnal "pay for delay" Supreme Court ruling and the impending patent protection expiration dates...

but... less frequesnt injections is interesting!

Hmmm.......my Neuro just prescribed Avonex for me yesterday. He said it was a better switch from Betaseron because they are both interferons.
The interferons seem to work for me.

He knows I wanted off the shots so maybe he knows that the Avonex is going to have fewer in the future. He didn't say.

For me its a trade off: Betaseron under the skin every other day
Avonex in the muscle once a week

I've been taking shots so long that I have developed shot phobia!

I was scared of getting a flu shot and that didn't bother me near as much as a subucaneous Betaseron shot! They burn and bruise! The flu shots was easy and painless.

Me too..

I've been on Avonex for about 6 months now. Seems to finally be working as haven't had any the bad relapses I was getting before.

To bad this new version is subucaneous injection tho . The muscle isn't that bad at all for me, but having skin reactions doesn't seem to fun with a subucaneous shot. So for now will stick with the muscular once a week!

The injectable Avonex pen once a week is intramuscular. I don't even feel it. I ice the area for 2 minutes before injecting and it numbs the nerves where you inject