Medicine Risk Worries

[Guest guest]

Hi all,

I've posted before but am noteably not a regular poster here, more

of a reader. Anyways, to refresh everyone, My name is , I'm 30

and have been diagnosed for about 1 and 1/2yrs now. I had been

taking Plaquenil & Mobic to control my RA until recently, I decided

that I just couldn't stand the skin reactions to my Plaquenil so

I've stopped taking it as of a week ago. Wasn't a real hard decision

as I'm hoping to conceive in December and would be needing to stop

it soon enough anways. I'm hoping that mobic & tylenol can control

me for awhile and hopefully I'll be lucky and have a remission type

pregnancy.

Ah, anyways I have a dear family friend who's 59 and has had RA for

20 something years. She's got severe RA, with full deformities on

her hands, knee problems yada yada. She's been taking MTX, Plaquenil

and a few other things for 20 something years. She doesn't take any

of the newer drugs like Humira or Remicade because her cost for it

is way too high Last year she found out that she has Myloma (sp)

a blood cancer that can invade the bone, which at that time was

dormant. She feels it was caused by her meds after so many years.

She was hospitalized last week for acute pneumonia, high blood

pressure, and her cancer that was dormant is now active and her

meds / ra is flaring and her body is just having a heck of a

reaction with everything I guess.

Just wondering; do you ever think it might be better to not take all

these drugs and see what happens. Does the risks ever scare you,

really scare you? I worry more in the long term since I'm only 30.

My mother who is 53 was just diagnosed this year but I feel she's

got a better prognosis than I because I will have to be on the meds

so much earlier than her.

Sometimes I just wonder, what would be worse, being crippled up and

in pain alot or risk something worse by longterm use of these drugs.

*Sighs*

I dont know