Hi all, I had Lemtrada and as a result I’m still undergoing monthly bloods. My last monthly bloods were just before the lockdown and I think that was the last time I left my house. I’m due to go again on Thursday this week and I’m really worried about going out and being that close to the nurse. Can anyone tell me what happened when they had to go to theirs and what precautions have been taken? I’m going to phone my GP on Tuesday because the more I think about it the more worried I’m getting about it. I’ve had a viral infection over the last couple of weeks-not coronavirus, a different mild virus. I had a sore throat and bad fatigue, but that was it. That was 3 weeks ago and I’m only just starting to come back to myself. I’m really worried about going out please can someone give me some assurance!
Hi, I think ringing the surgery tomorrow would be the best thing to do.
If the lemtrada hasnt shown any problems up to now, then maybe they`ll say it can be postponed, if the risk of you going to the surgery is too high.
Be guided by the GP.
Boudsx
Hi
I’d speak to your MS nurse. I’m meant to have my bloods done now, for my Tecfidera monitoring. But when I spoke to my nurse about it, she said they’d agreed to extend the normal deadline for having them done by three months, so there’s no need to go now.
Dan
Hello,
How long ago was your Lemtrada and what is your lymph count? Hopefully you’ll have had some chance to start reconstituting.
I’m 2.5 years post R2 so still going through the monitoring. I normally go to Kings College Hospital for my monthly tests. Given how involved they are with COVID 19 I agreed with my nurse to get the bloods done for the next few months at a local GPs. As my GP doesn’t offer this service I had my MS nurse drop them a note and they used this to arrange for me to go to a local GP attached to my local hospital (PRUH) where I could gent his done.
I had a timed appointment - and was met at the GP’s door by the nurse. There was no one else there - they are obviously using the times slots to keep patients apart. The nurse had fresh gloves and a mask on. She obviously had to come close enough to take the blood but was in and out in a second. The whole appointment couldn’t have taken more than 5 minutes. So whilst there may have been some risk, it felt controlled (much less than had I gone to KCH phlebotomy) - and felt like a reasonable trade off against leaving the scary Lemtrada side effects unmonitored.
Good luck! X