Sore throat and Benepali

[Mhairi54]

Morning. Hope everyone is as well as can be hoped for.

Looking for a wee bit of advice. I feel rubbish. Full of the cold and have a really painful throat. Hardly slept last night because of it. Was meant to inject my Benepali on Monday but I've held off because of my sore throat, hoping that it would get better after a couple of days. But if anything it's getting worse. Phoned the Rheumatology Helpline yesterday afternoon for the first time to ask their advice but hadn't realised that you were meant to have left a message before 7.30am on wednesday in order to get a call back on that day. The phone line is only manned on a wednesday. I was under the impression that it would be someone sitting at the end of a phone line taking calls throughout the day.

So I'm just wondering if anyone knows what the advice is for injecting whilst having a sore throat?

Thanks. Mhairi

[Beverley-NRAS]

Hi Mhairi,

the information from the pharma company that makes Benepali only says that:

"Administration of Benepali should be discontinued if a patient develops a serious infection."

medicines.org.uk/emc/medici... (section 4.4)

Not terribly helpful. Have you tried ringing your GP?

Beverley (NRAS Helpline)

[Mhairi54 in reply to Beverley-NRAS]

Hi Beverley, thanks for replying. I managed to speak to the duty doctor at my GP surgery earlier and he's advised me to hold off from taking my injection until the sore throat/fever goes away. Have to go for a blood test tomorrow as a sore throat can be a sign that my white blood cells have been affected by the medication. So also need to wait until I get the green light from the blood test. I'm 99% positive it's just a cold though, as both my kids are full of it too!

[JoWall44]

Hi Mhairi

If it was me I would hold off and find out if you have a throat infection first. When I started on Benepali I was told that it was OK to inject unless you felt so ill that you wouldn't go to work (or equivalent).

Good Luck.

[kerryhannah]

My nurse said to carry on injecting if I have a cold and just to monitor and get in touch if concerned. I said how worried I was about picking up infections (I'm a teacher so it's unavoidable!) and she said to carry on living as normal and to continue injecting unless I had serious illness/ concerns.