For the second year in a row I went into my yearly neurologist appt with the thought of switching to the oral meds on my mind. I was really gung ho last year, this year I had read quite a bit about heart issues with gilenya and I was pretty sure I would stick with the rebif. After talking to the doc I decided I would indeed stick to it another year at least. But I really don’t like the shots.

One of my biggest issues with the injections is occasionally I will experience significant pain. Other times nothing at all. When I first started I was told to ice my injection location beforehand. This didn’t work for me at all. I talked to a nurse at the pharmacy and she suggested a warm compress. This worked a lot better, but still I would occasionally experience discomfort. Sometimes a stinging feeling as the meds injected, other times it would feel like the stings would travel through my groin and down into my legs. Weird! Nobody had an answer for me.

So yesterday I had my yearly physical with my GP and he suggested I get a tetnus shot since it had been ages since I had gotten one. I thought what the heck, just another shot. The nurse came in and swabbed the area and before she injected me she made a big production about fanning the area. I asked her about it and she said sometimes the alcohol will travel into the body with the needle and will sting like lava. I thought, wait a minute, that sounds familiar. Could that be the cause of my injection pain? So today I tried that, day one of pain-free injection alcohol drying experiment was a success! We’ll see what happens down the road…