Kerrie -- Re: Rheumatoid arthritis treatment - HELP!?

[Guest guest]

Have you ever tried LDN?

>

>

> 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