Yes

It’s been almost 12 months since I stopped Avonex and I’ve noticed something missing.

Not the handful of painkillers that I was taking to help with the shots, not the reliable day-after headache, not the increased dizziness - nothing physical.

It was that feeling of being just a bit, well, down.

Admittedly, I will whine where necessary - but it wasn’t that sort of a feeling, it wasn’t a whine with a reason, it was a slow moving insidious creep of a downer.

To begin with, a few weeks off Avonex, I wasn’t sure if I was imagining it. Had I’d simply had a pleasant few days and was just generally feeling brighter, or was something more meds-based happening?

Being brought up on Adrian Mole, I do still keep a bit of a diary and I trawled through it last night to look for evidence.

And yes, there they are, a number of references to feeling down or a bit depressed, and they are mentioned with increasing regularity during the time I was injecting.
But now? A year off the Avonex? Not so much.

I asked my MS nurse about it and she confirmed that despite initial patient trials not flagging any issues, in ‘real life’ use the beta interferons can be a cause of low mood, with Avonex being a particular offender.

People close to me have experienced depression and anxiety and we have spoken about it quite extensively, so why, even though I’d recognised it in my diary, did I not pay enough attention to my consistently low mood?

It also wasn’t a topic that came up in any of my health reviews – but I wonder if it had, would I have just dismissed it as a bad week or would I have made the connection and mentioned it?

I’d been on Avonex for 18 months and it’s only now I’m not that I notice the difference – I’m not so tired, I’m more engaged, I’m not so, well, down.

Obviously the interferons work well for a lot of people and I’m certainly not advocating anyone coming off them, but it is worth being aware of how you feel and noticing any changes. 

And it's not just the drugs - MS can impact our minds just as much as our bodies. We need to listen to ourselves and talk about our difficulties.

For everyone, mental health is just as important as the physical sort.

It was World Mental Health Day yesterday and the following links may be helpful:

• The MS Society has a really useful booklet about mood, depression and emotions as well as online information about MS and mental health.
• The MS Trust has some practical steps to help manage emotional wellbeing.
• Support is also available at Mind.

:: Yes by McAlmont and Butler