My preschooler came home the other day with a respiratory virus, as they often do at that age.  I have now been on Gilenya for a month so it would be a good test of how my body could handle it given that 80% of my lymphocytes are imprisoned in my lymph nodes.

At first it seemed that I had dodged a bullet.  I was the only one in the family to have not contracted it from our little one.  And then it hit me.  Hard.

It’s the sickest that I have been in a while.  For days, I just laid in bed, coughing up a lung.  I was so weak that it greatly affected my MS.  Usually, I can still walk ok; just a little wobbly.  On day two of the bug, my left leg stiffened completely and I lost control of it.  I couldn’t walk.  I could barely stand.

Luckily in the days since it peaked, my walking is slowly returning to normal(ish).  However, it got me thinking……     As we were chugging airborne, gobbling down vitamin C gummies and sucking on zinc lozenges, all of which are supposed to aid our immune system, I was simultaneously taking another drug to intentionally suppress mine.  It is a lot like pressing on the gas while standing on the brake pedal with your other foot.