Kathe

August 23, 2002

Kathe,

I was sad to hear of your son’s health problems, it must have been difficult

for all of you. It’s amazing that he has become such a wonderful man, you

must be so proud of his strength. You are the one who raised him so it

just shows that you are a pretty great and strong lady yourself!

Hugs,

Heidi

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September 8, 2002

Kathe,

I've been taking mtx since last August, when I was diagnosed correctly. My

rheumy uses the step-up approach, and has taken things very slowly, in my

opinion. I was on a low dose of prednisone until a couple of months ago to

help the mtx along. The prednisone was wonderful for my RA, and I even

managed to control my diabetes and not gain weight on it, but I have Fuchs'

corneal dystrophy and cataracts that I didn't want to make worse. So I just

tapered off it on my own.

The last time I saw my rheumy I had developed rheumatoid nodules. But even

then, he just upped the mtx (to 15 mg) and said to call him in a month and

tell him how I was doing. When I called him, I told him I was still having a

lot of pain, and he was just about to up the mtx again, but I told him my

last blood work showed that my white blood cell count was low. So then he

called in a prescription for Arava. Two weeks later, my liver enzymes were

slightly elevated and white blood cell count still lower and platelet count

and lymph % also low. So now he is using the step-down approach as far as

the mtx goes, and I am now taking 10 mg. I'm also taking 10 mg of Arava, but

it's working very well. I don't know why he waited so long to try it.

I also tried Celebrex and Vioxx, which did no good at all. I got an ulcer

from taking a double dose of Aleve, so had to stop that. Bextra does seem to

help.

Is this combination not working for you? Is that why you want to switch to

Enbrel? I hope that I continue to get relief from my present regimen. I'm

not on a waiting list for Enbrel.

It seems that we're walking a tightrope, trying to find a combination of

drugs that help us without killing us.

Sue in NC

on 9/8/02 6:58 PM, Kathe Sabetzadeh at lv2ryd@... wrote:

> Sounds like you are on the same medicine regimen I am

> - metho, arava, and bextra! The metho and, at that

> time, motrin were not helping keep my pain in check so

> my doctor added arava, changed the motrin to bextra,

> and that has done the trick. Still have the usual

> fatigue and pain, but tolerable, and flares at times,

> but these medications together are working very well I

> think. Would still love to be on Embrel of course,

> have been on the waiting list for almost a year, and

> hopefully by the first of next year they will be

> taking new patients. How much metho do you take? I

> take 15 mg. every Friday and 20 mg. of Arava a day.

> The bextra I take once or twice a day depending on my

> pain level - it works so much better for me than the

> Motrin did. I have not had any rash with the Arava

> but do get the diarrhea - would almost rather have the

> rash lol - and hope that your rash does not become

> worse so that you can continue to get the benefits of

> the Arava. I get blood work every 8 weeks and so far

> the liver enzymes have been good - I worry about that

> - the metho and the arava both have that side effect.

> Well, I have rambled on enough - best of luck and hope

> you are having a good day!

September 8, 2002