Week 4 - A Rough One

Week 4 - Post Lemtrada

November 17, 2019

This was a rough week; some things maybe made worse by the Lemtrada added to the continued sleep deprivation made me zombie-like.  I am at the very end of my Invisalign treatment. I switched out to my very last tray last week, Thursday.  By Saturday, the inside of my left cheek was really irritated; I thought I had bit the inside of my cheek overnight but it kept getting worse and on Sunday I realized it had to be the tray.  I switched back to the previous tray but it took all week for it to heal.  Yesterday, was the first day that I could eat without first numbing the area with Orajel.  That's how bad it was.  It hurt to eat and it hurt to sleep on my left side (my usual position) and rest my cheek on the pillow.  Sleeping on my right side made my right shoulder hurt; I was a disaster this week and I felt like it. 

The worst days were Wednesday and Thursday; I feel like I was holding it together until then.  On Wednesday, I just hit a wall and I also got the chills and started feeling achy around dinner time.  I did check and my temperature was normal.  I took some Tylenol and felt fine the next morning.  This happened on Thursday and Friday evening too.  My temperature was a degree above my normal on Thursday night but I never ran a fever.  Both of these times, two Tylenol was all it took and I was fine in the morning.  My cheek had healed up enough by Thursday night that I could sleep mostly normally, I got a pretty good amount of sleep on Thursday and Friday nights so I felt a little more like myself on Friday.

I was told by one of the nurses at the infusion center that it would take me longer to heal and suggested I use antibiotic ointment on cuts.  Apparently, it also makes you more sensitive to irritation too.  I've been doing Invisalign for just over a year.  I've had trays that irritated my mouth before but not like this.  I checked the tray and didn't see anything obvious that would have caused that.  It also seemed to take longer to heal then it should have.

The energy dips are to be expected but is made worse by not getting enough sleep.  I need to find a balance when they happen.  I tend to do the basic "mom" things that I need to do when they happen and I don't do the "taking care of myself" things.  I barely did any yoga, I wasn't making myself celery juice or smoothies, I wasn't drinking as much water (although I wasn't dehydrated), I wasn't writing in my journal and I wasn't even getting in the shower everyday.  Clearly, some of those things I need for my physical and mental health.  My mind goes to "what do I have to do" to get through this day and unfortunately, those things don't make the have-to list.

My relapse seems to have mostly passed.  I noticed on Friday morning that my legs were back to normal; that could have happened sooner but I didn't notice.  My finger tips are still a little bit numb. I did some reading and it is common for old relapses to come up.  It's the new ones that they look for to track progress.  Also, this is the first of a two step treatment so it wouldn't be unheard of to have new progression this year but it is hoped that it is slowed down.

I had my blood drawn on Friday.  I'll get results tomorrow (Monday).  I'll do a quick update on how that goes.  Some people post their blood results.  I don't know why anyone would really care but maybe I'll post it as a 'page' in case anyone really wants to see the numbers.