Rheumatoid arthritis treatment - HELP!?

December 14, 2007

I have RA and its horrible. The methotrexate used to make me sick too. I

used to take it on a Friday night and feel like crap most of Saturday. Tell

her

to take it before bedtime, or right after dinner. This way she sleeps

through a lot of the sick feeling. It takes weeks before you even get any

benefit

from it.

I don't know anything about drug interactions but I'll tell you what helped

me.

For the flare, tell her to ask her doctor if she can have a Medrol pack.

This will make her feel like a new person. Its basically prednisone. You take 6

pills the first day spread out, 5 the next, then 4 etc until you go through

the pack. by the end of the 2nd day the flare will be gone. I've had 2 MAJOR

flares since my initial one that got me diagnosed and the medrol pack is

amazing.

If she can take Aleve, tell her she can take up to 2 of them every 4 hours.

That just brings it to prescription strength. My pharmacist cousin told me

this and my doctor okayed it. You just have to take a break from it every 4-5

days when you take that dose. Before I got my first Medrol pack with my

initial flare, the Aleve was the only reason I could walk.

I don't use Arava, I use Plaquenil. That did nothing for me but I still take

it as it supposedly helps knock the disease off track a bit. The next big

thing for me was ENBREL. Liquid life saving gold. Its a self injectible. You

can either get a syringe and inject it or they now have a pen type injector

that works like clicking a ball point pen. I just use the syringes. Within

days of my first injection I had my life back. I still have bad days here and

there but usually an Aleve, just one Aleve, will help.

The bad part is...big surprise here....the insurance companies!!! Many will

not pay for the big guns like Enbrel or Remicade until you've " failed " on a

combo of methotrexate and a DMARD (arava, plaquenil) for a year!!! My Enbrel

costs $1377 a month. I pay $25, insurance pays the rest. See, they are not

eager to get that bill.

I tried many naturals and nothing did it for me. MSM helped a bit, cats

claw helped a bit but nothing made it where I could get out of bed in the

morning and walk to the bathroom without holding on to furniture to walk, crying

and in pain the entire time.

IMO, go with the pharaceuticals, get it under control and get her out of

pain, and on her bad days, which she will have, let her experiment with

naturals. If she finds one that helps then maybe she can discuss a trial of no

pharmas with her doctor and see if she can do without the meds.

I would kill for my Enbrel. I hate big pharma, but I would push my husband

off a cliff for my enbrel injections!! Seriously, I can't function without them

Good luck

Kerrie

In a message dated 12/14/2007 11:19:18 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,

kkandj@... writes:

I was wondering if anyone could spare some time and information on

any treatments that have been helpful in treating rheumatoid

arthritis. I realize this is a bit off-topic because I am here

asking for help for my mom. Since I have gotten so much help here

in regards to my son and treating his autism I figured it wouldn't

hurt to ask if anyone has any experience with RA.

My mom was diagnosed about 3 months ago. The doctor started her on

methotrexate. It was helping with her symptoms but she was sick for

two days after each dose (taken once a week). She stopped the

methotrexate and is now in the middle of a horrible flare up. She

is so sore that she is not able to do anything for herself. Her

hands and feet are very swollen.

She started using enzymes a couple weeks ago and within a couple

days was feeling much better. That only lasted a couple of days.

She has recently started taking glucosamine supplements as well.

Her doctor wants to start her on Arava but she is worried about the

effect it will have on her blood pressure (which is already high).

I have gotten great results by treating my son naturally and would

like to do the same with her. The only problem is that I am unsure

of what the best/most effective treatments are. She is currently

taking Effexor for depression and Synthroid for thyroid function.

She also has a mouth full of silver fillings which we are unable to

have removed at this time.

Can anyone suggest anything that we may pursue? Any help would be

greatly appreciated!

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December 14, 2007