Re: Rituxan, Cytoxan, Abatacept Lori

June 29, 2006

Hi Lori:

I can't give you any personal experience, but I do

believe we have one member who has just started with

Orencia (Abatacept), and is having good results so

far.

Her name is , and I hope she will see your post.

Kathe in CA

--- Lori Maynard <lorimaynard@...> wrote:

> Does anyone here have any first hand experience with

> any of these drugs for

> RA treatment?

>

> Lori

>

> [Non-text portions of this message have been

> removed]

>

__________________________________________________

June 29, 2006

Thanks Kathe,

I'm hoping these drugs won't be necessary. They were the next drugs my

daughter's rheumy wanted me to research in the event her current meds

(Humira, MTX) aren't working. His concern was mainly her state during her

visit to him Monday. He is seeing her in 2 weeks and felt that if she

wasn't back to doing well by then, he wanted to explore other drug

possibilities.

When I Googled these drugs, I was not happy with what I saw. They seem very

scary to me. Even scarier than the Humira and MTX.

I am relieved in the meantime though, that her flare seems to be subsiding

and her blood work from Monday was very encouraging. So it would appear

that the Humira/MTX combination is working.

She is also on a fairly high dose of Prednisone, but we are slowly weaning

her off this. We take 5mg away every two weeks. So far, so good. Our hope

is that she will be completely off Prednisone by the middle of September.

I'm going to throw one other thing out there, for anyone who wants to keep

reading. Back in February, when was doing very poorly, we started her

on a dietary supplement called Reliv. She takes 3 shakes per day of the

Reliv Now combined with Innergize (another of Reliv's products). We had

heard about people having " remarkable results " with this product, but of

course didn't believe any of it. When you're taking a supplement and so

many meds, it is difficult to know which thing is helping you the most.

But, my husband and I thought that since MTX can damage the liver, having a

really good supplement can only help keep the liver healthy.

Anyway, about 2 weeks ago had just had it with these " shakes " and

stopped taking them. She was really feeling great anyway, so we let her

stop them. But then this past weekend she had this awful flare and my

husband wondered if it was because she stopped taking the Reliv. Well, for

the past 3 days we've had her take her 3 shakes per day and she is feeling

much better. This is the kind of thing you have to buy from a distributor.

We are not distributors so I hope no one takes this as me trying to sell

anything. I'm not. I just throw it out there in the event some of you may

want to check it out for yourself online and see if it is something you may

want to try.

Lori

Re: [ ] Rituxan, Cytoxan, Abatacept Lori