Any time you have a problem that causes your immune system to go into high gear (such as a illness or any type of infection), your mg will get worse. Remember that mg is caused because your immune system malfunctions and is over reacting. Many of us take immune suppressants to keep our immune systems in lower gear so it doesn't manufacture as many t-cells to attack the receptors on the muscles.

It may get back to where you were over time - but that's the key thing...it takes time. I know, I hate that too.

Good luck!

Yes, any stress on the body, as Juanitad said, can adversely affect MG. So many things can.

Examples of things that can affect MG: Stress, not enough sleep, not enough protein in the diet, lack of B12 (we need it to make acetylcholine), extremes of heat and cold, too much potassium or magnesium, nightshade foods (potato, tomato, peppers, nicotine, eggplant, etc.) and caffeine are cholinesterase inhibitors like Mestinon and MIGHT make you better or worse, infections (viral or bacterial), surgery, crying, not resting enough in between activities, too much nonstop activity, not enough hydration (water intake), an overactive or underactive thyroid or other endocrine problems, allergies, food sensitivities, and so many other things that might contribute to an imbalance in your immune system.

Mestinon doesn't necessarily "fix" facial and speech issues. If you are not getting better, you should make a call to your neuro. You might need to consider additional medications that address the immune issue (antibodies attacking your tissues). Although, what you do is your choice!

MGers need to balance activity with rest. Mestinon only goes so far. Even if you're on other drugs, having MG is still about being sensible. It sucks to have to reduce activities or alternate them with rest but it's a smart thing to do.

The more you do, as Unsure said, can push your MG too far to the more severe state. The worse MG gets, the longer it takes to recover. It's best to maintain an even strain.

I really think you should call your doctor. Ask him/her about the Mestinon dose amount and the spacing between doses. Maybe you guys can figure something out that works better for you.

I hope you feel better soon. Keep asking questions. This is a very unpredictable and rather frustrating disease!

Annie

Yeah I have been seeing the neuro each month until last month. I go again on March 19th. I went from 2 60mg dosages a day to 3 and then 4 where I am at now. Besides the Baker Cyst incident almost 4 weeks ago I have been oncall for work the past 3 weeks which also puts on added stress. I go offcall on Friday. Now that the swelling and bruising is almost gone I am hoping to have a nice quiet weekend and hopefully the Mestinon kicks in. If it's not better by Monday, I'll try bumping up to a 5th pill daily. I am still in the adjusting period to see what works best for me. If that doesn't work I'll drop back down to 3 pills as that seemed to work fairly well. I was only on 4 pills daily for 3 weeks before I noticed the worsening but I still think it was the Bakers Cyst problem that cause the relapse. I told my neuro already that I will refuse predisone already as I have been on that before for another issue 30 years ago and I don't need the added weight gain it gave me before.