and others...treatment is between you and the rheumatologist

May 11, 2006

You have to do what is right for you. Please don't allow anyone to bully you

into a certain medication or use scare tactics (for or against a particular

medicine) or give the impression all is well with any particular med..

Depending on the severity of your condition you may do all of those things and

still end up crippled or you may be helped greatly. Some hate to admit this

fact, even researchers. It is all trial and error and it is all personal to

your particular autoimmune disorder (RA is putting it too mildly). There are

side effects to all of them and it can be as serious as your friend's reaction

or it may be mild. I had them too.. I took Claritin, Zyrtec, and Flonase a lot

of the times, and also sudafed. It was the loss of effectiveness over time that

eventually caused me to give up certain medicines. Risk of the side effects as

long as there is relief of the pain makes the only sense to me, when the side

effects outweigh pain relief, it is really

quite pointless isn't it. With some of the meds, you can go up on the doses,

however, as with anything the higher the dose the more side effects. My hair

never quite grew back and my stomach never fully recovered, and now elevated

liver enzymes, so some side effects I could have done without -- making it

difficult to take the needed pain meds for pain relief without Prevacid and I

still get stomach cramps with the Prevacid I take everyday. That said, I truly

believe you can never know how a medication will work for you until you try it

and I have tried many, you can't know by someone else's experience. Let the

doctor come up with a regimine for you, then ask lots of questions why he/she is

choosing this route. Some have mild RA and the medicine is a miracle to them,

hopefully, you have mild RA. Just like with any other class of meds, you might

have to try different ones to see which works for you. For example, I am

allergic to penicillin. However, there are many

people who can safely take penicillin. Your friend might be like that in that

she was allergic to Enbrel and yet others can safely take enbrel with mild side

effects. I think 4 months is long enough time to take any medication and if you

are not better, try something else. Also, it's okay to ask the doctor when you

should notice a difference after starting a new medication.

wishing you all the best possible outcome for remission or to save your joints

for as long as you can.

peace and healing,

Ebony

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