Avonex was one of the 5 I recall being on over 15 years with great sucess at 60 I followed suggestion to stop as I had 5 years of no new lesions and no active lesions. Now 12 years clear but there was no real follow up during these years. I am having hair loss and rocking vertigo and brain fog episodes and am just wondering if there is an conclusions about those of us at this stage.

I made the mistake of not taking DMDs mostly due to insurance lapses and MS progressed into my brain stem and I have brain shrinkage. Had to stop working. F I wish I had the same story of those who have had MS go remittant for years w/o extreme relapse.
It's just not my story. MS burning out seems unreasonable. Was it MS? Maybe it happens. I don't know. I would like to know how for sure though.
Glad it's not acting up for you.
I did take Avonex at one point but it hurt so bad for some reason. Had to stop.

Been on Avonex since 1998 when it was a pretty new drug that cost about $2,500.00 per month. Now it's $9,600.00 per month!! I've been very stable. MRI in 2017 showed basically no change from MRI done in 2011. This is going to be my last month as at this point (20 years diagnosed and probably 10 years before that undiagnosed) I'm pretty sure I'm secondary progressive and the Avonex is a huge waste of money. I'm hoping I feel better in some way and just have to deal with a slow progression. I'm very active, work full-time, spend 5 hrs a week in the gym etc. I'm tired of feeding the big pharma monster. Biogen comes out with a new drug every other minute. Seems to me MS is a huge money maker.

I am on Tecfidera which is the latest oral that has been approved. I have had minimal side effects. Prior meds included Copaxone, Rebif and Tysabri. All were O.K. The key is to make sure that you don't get taken off one without being placed on another. I was taken off of Copaxone due to a site infection by a prior doctor who did not put me on anything else. 4 months later I had a exasperation and ended up in a nursing home for 3 months. I had full functions (walking too) prior to the incident and now I am wheelchair bound and only able to use my left arm.

Was on Avonex for 8 years.(that was nine years ago) Being that my lesions are in the cervical spine and only 1 in the brain, that none of the DMD used for MS have been tested on the cervical spine and that all the data speaks to the only the brain made the decision to go off of it. Had 3 back to back exacerbations last year all due to high fever, UTI or stress and no new lesions being on a DMD wouldn't have prevented them from happening. Had a lot more data that I shared with my doctor. He said officially he had to recommend I stay on a DMD. Off the record he said he couldn't find fault with all the data I presented.