RA Post-Partum

[Guest guest]

I wondered if anyone knows or has any personal experience with this?

I saw my Rheumatologist yesterday and he said he wants to keep a close eye

on me because women with " true Rheumatoid Arthritis " flare after having a

baby. I said but I am on Humira so shouldn't I just stay consistently in

remission and he said there is not enough data on it. Has anyone stayed on

the meds through pregnancy and continued afterwards? What happened?

Note I put in quotes " true RA " . I really don't like my doctor but any decent

ones around here are hard to come by. He has never seen me with RA

symptoms since I was in remission when I came to him for my Costochondritis

and my other doctor had retired, so I feel like he does not believe I have RA!

[Guest guest]

wrote: I had a horrible flare after I had my daughter but I didnt take any meds while I was pregnant and I didnt get back on my meds immediatly after giving birth. <snipped>

So I dont know if after pregnancy made my RA worse or if it was because I didnt take any meds.

Ardeith writes: I'm not medically trained....so this is just the observation of a non-medical person....OK? RA is an auto- immune disease......the immune system turns around and attacks what it is supposed to protect. Now, it seems to me that perhaps your immune system is suppressed during pregnancy so that it won't attack that little "alien" you are growing in your belly.

If that is possible, then it seems reasonable to me that after giving birth, the immune system gets back to business as usual, and then, if you are susceptible to RA....you flare, big time.

I had a baby in November of 1971, and was dx'd in March or April of 1972. My RA doctor, at that time, said that being pregnant had held off the onset of the RA.....he didn't say that my immune system had been suppressed by the pregnancy, but it seems plausible to me. There may also be some hormonal stuff going on during pregnancy that affects things too....I dunno.

The sad thing about all that was that my son, who was six when his baby sister was born, thought the baby had caused mom to become all crippled up, maybe it seemed that way to him.....but in an argument with her, when he was twelve or thirteen, he told her my RA was all her fault. She never told me about it until she was in her 20's and I had an awful time convincing her that this just wasn't so........siblings can do horrible things to each other.....

Ardy