[TwoKidsTwoCats]

cause I'm feeling like that dead horse! With the little yellow guy being the last.. and I mean THE LAST ... Copaxone shot for me.

Be warned big WHINE being unleashed....

I had a fairly good 5 year run with Copaxone. BUT.. you knew there had to be one... It beat me real good this Sunday afternoon. I have had @20 of the Immediate post injection reactions (IPIR) in the last 2 years. Each one has been a little worse than the one before.

Sunday I did my shot at 2:30pm. I knew it was going to happen before I pulled the needle out. Immediately I started feeling flushed. I called my hubby to come in because I felt faint. He grabbed an ice pack on his way back to the bedroom and immediately held it to my face, which was already red and feeling like someone was squeezing my cheeks.

With in seconds my heart rate shot up, my guts felt like someone was twisting them tight, it was becoming harder to breath and it hurt like heck to sit or lay down. All this has been "normal" for me when having an IPIR. However this time add in vomiting, diarrhea, chest pain, and extremely painful chills with in 10 minutes of the shot! Fever went up to 101 F within 30 minutes.

The chills continue for @ 30 minutes.. then I realized my heart rate was really high. I have problems with tachycardia and take meds for it. It has been under control for 10 years. I checked my pulse rate and it was 179 bpm. I thought about heading to the ER after 20 minutes of this, but it was pouring down rain (courtesy of IKE) and the winds were about 20 mph. I started all the usual manuevers to try to calm the heart... ice water on my face, leaning on the couch to put a little pressure on my heart... an hour later I finally plopped down in the recliner and it stopped. I really hate it when my heart does aerobics without the rest of my body!

Today I'm am so sore around my stomach, chest and ribs from the chills and vomiting. My back muscles have been in spasms all day.

SO... I officially said enough Copaxone. I had hoped it would not come to this because it was so easy most of the time. In recent months I have had issues with microscopic blood showing up in urine lab tests. I went through all matter of testing with a urologist and the only thing we can figure out is it is possibly the Copaxone causing it... it's one of the possible side affects. But this IPIR pushed me over the edge in making the decision to stop Copaxone.

Now to figure out where to go from here..... I have a neuro appointment Nov 17... he's suggesting IVIG.