New meds from rheumy

[Sue8]

Hi everyone, hope we are all doing ok.

I have been up and down over the past few weeks. I eventually had to increase back up on the pred to 20mg as advised by my rheumy helpline then a week ago I dropped by 5mg to 15mg again as advised. I knew it was a huge drop but I was back to see my consultant yesterday so I wanted to show him how bad it gets.

Anyway had a really bad weekend but I hung in there and needless to say by the time I saw my rheumy I was not as bad, typical. So as my crp is up to 29 again he knows that the MTX is not working for me. He toyed with the idea to increase it to 25mg but because of my hair thinning and already on folic acid 6 days a week he decided against it. So instead he has added another DMARD in Hydroxychloroquine 200mg twice daily. He said it works well with MTX and to try it. However as my crp is not going down and I flare every time I reduce the pred he has kept me on 15mg pred til I go back in 3 months. I thought this was funny as at my last visit he wanted me off the pred as soon as poss.

I asked about my swollen neck and shoulder muscles and he said it was the pred causing it along with my furry face lol.

Now because of all the pain I get in my legs from hips down I asked him if there was a possible elment of Fibro added in as the leg pain did not really fit in with the RA or PMR well not all of it anyway. He confirmed that I had got a degree of fybro also to which I laughed and said "oh why not, one more ain't gonna matter"

So I left with another illness and another med to add to my smartie box

The new med can take up to 12 weeks to work also so ibuprofen it is then til it does.

Oh the joys

Keep smiling

Sue

[sylvi]

Sue i so know how your feeling. I had the shock of my life last week when i went to see my rheumy. She has put me forward for anti-tnf. I knew my ra was not good and she has upped my mtx to 6 pills and then to 8 pills in a months time. You do sound like you have fibro and it is painful. It never ends with ra does it. There are a lot of other diseases or complaints that go hand in hand with ra. The steroids will add weight to you and hopefully you want to get off them. I am in the process of coming of them. Hope the new meds work. sylvia.xxx

[Sue8 in reply to sylvi]

I have been on 8 pills of MTX since last nov and I can's see any difference but when you have more than one chronic illness it's hard to know which pain belongs to what lol. Hope the increased dose of MTX works for you Sylvia. xx

[sylvi in reply to Sue8]

Christmas 2011 i had a chest infection and i had to come off mtx injections and then i had to stay off them due to having to have my knee redone and since then i have been on tablets. I was hoping they would re-instate the injections,but they didn't. I have ra,fibro and reflex sympathetic dystrophy to add to the mix. lets hope we all start to have better health.xxx

[Sue8 in reply to sylvi]

it seems like most with RA have some other illness along side it. I was diagnosed as a diabetic a year ago and at the same time PMR then in June I was put on steroids as I could not even get out of bed without help.. Went to rheumy in Oct and diagnosed with RA and put straight on the MTX. Now the new med added. Aren't we lucky ;( to be so special that we have all these illnesses going on.

[Hidden]

High , my waist band and scales are straining at my steroids but necessary as Im awaiting new meds too x

[miss]

Hi Sue sorry your having such a rotten time. Understand were your coming from being diagnosed last year. I now now feel like a pill popping machine. Hay oh hopefully they kept as all well xx