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DIR Return to: COPAXONE, GLATOPA (glatiramer acetate)
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#Post#: 3189--------------------------------------------------
After two months of glatiramer acetate, a status report
By: agate Date: February 19, 2021, 1:20 am
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I took Copaxone for nearly 3 years but stopped taking it 10
years ago.
In mid-December I began the generic three-times-a-week form,
glatiramer acetate, getting 40mg three times a week instead of
20mg daily.
I soon found that the arm shots just weren't feasible for me.
The reach is too difficult, and my hands and arms lack the
dexterity. Since giving up on the arm sites, I've been much
happier.
I've had a number of mysterious pains since starting this
routine, and some of the pain has been severe. Mostly the pain
has involved the arms, shoulders, neck, left hip. I understand
that this drug has quite a few possible side effects though I
don't recall having them back when I was on Copaxone.
But I'm older now, and this is a different dosage. The pain
problems seem to be diminishing.
#Post#: 4289--------------------------------------------------
Update at almost 3 years on Glatopa (glatiramer acetate)
By: agate Date: January 20, 2024, 7:29 pm
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I'm down to two injection sites, the two thighs, but that seems
to be all right. There may be some lipoatrophy but so far the
shots have been tolerable.
In fact, reactions to them have subsided to the point where the
injection site just tingles painfully for an hour or two
afterwards but it doesn't interfere with activities or sleep.
I was still having some bad site reactions until I made a change
in the way I did the shot--the timing of the 3 shots each week.
It occurred to me that the problem might be that exactly 48
hours between shots, which is often the way I was doing them,
might not be giving enough time in between each shot.
I was doing the shot at the same time of day each time, always
making sure that at least 48 hours had passed between shots.
This is the standard operating procedure recommended by the
company.
So if I took the shots at about 9 PM every Monday, Wednesday,
and Friday, two of those shots were no more than 48 hours apart.
I changed to this kind of schedule:
first shot of the week - Monday afternoon between 1 and 4 PM
second shot - Wednesday at about 6 PM
third shot - Friday at about 9:30 PM
I've been using this revised schedule for only a few weeks but
have an impression it's cutting down on the severity of the site
reactions. Some of them kept me awake for many hours and I
wanted to cut down on the problem.
I have charts showing the location of each shot so that I won't
use the exact same injection site too often. That is also
recommended by the manufacturer as a way of minimizing
lipoatrophy.
#Post#: 4291--------------------------------------------------
More on the timing of glatiramer injections
By: agate Date: January 22, 2024, 1:41 am
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The most recent shot caused fairly obnoxious burning, but still
not nearly so obnoxious as some shots in the past. And this was
the third shot in the series of 3.
I had doubts about changing from daily 20mg doses of Copaxone to
three-times-weekly 40mg doses of Glatopa, the same drug as
Copaxone, in the first place, because 20mg x 7 = 140mg total for
the week and 40mg x 3 = 120mg for the week, which would mean
that, while I would be getting 20mg less of the drug each week,
I would be getting twice as much of it each time I injected it.
And in fact there was a fairly steep adaptation in the change
from the first version of glatiramer to the second, though I
think the reason for that may have been my increasing age and
the passage of 10 years from the time when I stopped 20mg daily
Copaxone and started 40mg Glatopa 3 times a week.
The steep adaptation involved one mini-episode of something
resembling an IPIR, as well as many injection site problems,
some so severe that I was awake all night. Most of all, there
were episodes of arthritis-like pain in some joint or other,
often nowhere near the injection site, that would keep me awake
much of the night but disappear some time the next day. These
gradually went away after about a year but were hard to
tolerate.
"Arthralgia" is listed as a known adverse reaction to
glatiramer, and I suspect that that is what these episodes were.
"Arthralgia" merely means "pain in a joint" but the pain was
severe.
So my thought is that maybe a person taking glatiramer and
having problems with it might need to be very careful about
timing the injections so as to keep each injection as far apart
in time as possible from any other injection, just so as not to
be taking in more glatiramer than the body wants the person to
have.
#Post#: 4295--------------------------------------------------
Still more on the timing of glatiramer injections
By: agate Date: January 26, 2024, 1:51 am
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This thread, all about me, has had over 65 page views. Maybe an
update wouldn't hurt.
I'm still trying this new (to me) timing of the glatiramer
injections, and so far there has been a noticeable improvement
in the intensity and severity of the reactions. The painful
burning is less severe and doesn't last nearly as long.
A typical week seems to be shaping up like this:
Tuesdays - shot #1 between 3 and 6 PM
Thursdays - shot #2 between 6 and 7 PM
Saturdays - shot #3 between 8 and 9:45 PM
#Post#: 4309--------------------------------------------------
Re: After two months of glatiramer acetate, a status report
By: agate Date: February 8, 2024, 11:14 am
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So far so good with the new timing.
I'm not sure it's a solution to anything.
There's also the matter of leaky needles. Some of the needles
leak a few drops of the medicine. That could be a problem. I
have no idea why that happens. It seems a shame when each drop
is probably worth quite a large sum.
The tight-fitting cap (two caps, actually) is hard to remove
carefully, without pulling on the whole syringe. Maybe pulling
too forcefully on the cap causes the leakage?
#Post#: 4322--------------------------------------------------
An update on the revised timing for Glatopa injections
By: agate Date: February 20, 2024, 1:07 am
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It's been over a month now since I changed the timing for the
Glatopa injections so that there is more time in between each
one.
This has been working well for me. Sometimes I have burning pain
at the injection site for a couple of hours but never as severe
as with some of the previous injections.
With the previous schedule, there was 48 hours between shots 1
and 2. and again between shots 2 and 3 of each week. Now there
is 50.5 hours between each of those 2 shots (and 72 hours
between the last shot of the week and the first shot of the next
week).
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