remission

[Guest guest]

Hi Kathy and all,

I was lucky enough to go into almost complete remission almost as soon as I

became pregnant with my son (he's now 22 mos). I was on surgam and

sulfasalazine at the time, went off it as soon as I suspected I was pregnant

and was pretty much in remission already. The remission lasted a full six

months after was born -- my rheumatologist and I attribute that to

the fact I was breastfeeding exclusively, thus keeping those pregnancy-like

hormone levels up. When symptoms began to return around that time, I went

back on same two drugs, but suffered a major flare about six months later

anyway. Doc decided the sulfa had stopped working (this is quite common,

apparently, when you go off a drug and then start back on it again). So when

my son was 14 months old, I went on plaquenil. He stopped nursing then

because it made my milk bitter. And, although the doc warned me about this,

it was still traumatic. However, I was in agony at the time with fingers as

big as sausages and couldn't care for him the way I wanted. I also had some

cortisone shots for immediate relief. The plaquenil (or some higher being?)

took about seven months to really kick in but I've been doing pretty good

since then (fingers crossed). As far as the remission goes: my doc says " you

don't need me -- you just need to stay pregnant! " I'm not so sure that's an

option. My hubby and I have yet to decide whether to go for child number 2 --

but if we do, I hope with all my heart that I have another remission. I will

be sure to continue nursing frequently (I had cut back to part-time because I

returned to work when he was six months old) for as long as I can, not just

for the arthritis but because it's a truly wonderful, miraculous thing.

Anyhow, that was my experience with an almost 15-month remission. Wish it had

lasted longer.

take care

skana

You wrote:

Has anyone gone into remission and stayed in that state? For how long? What

drugs (or miracle or whatever) got you there, and how did your doctor

handle it? At what point do they declare a remission of PA? This is

something I haven't seen much of anything about and was wondering. Looking

for hope, actually! ;-)

Kathy Fowkes

fowkes@...