What is "Normal" for RA sufferers? | Arthritis Information

I was wondering what is considered "normal" for RA sufferers while on their respective drugs (ie. in terms of stiffness, and joint pains....not the ancillary side effects of the drugs).

My sister has been taking predinose (5mg) (for about 3 weeks) and plaquenil for about (2 wks). When she first wakes up...she is still stiff and then she takes her 5 mg of predinose and about about 3 hours later she feels better and by the end of the day she says she is loosened up and feels better. Is this normal? Should she get a pill cutter and cut her 5mg predinose tablet up into two and take one in the morning and one at night instead?

Also...since she is on Predinose & plaquenil. How will she know if/when the plaquenil has kicked in and is working? (instead of just predinose working) Thanks in advance for your advice and response. you gals/guys are a really knowledgable and caring bunch on this board! :)

bro7539359.3638657407

She sounds pretty normal espcially with the pred. It takes a while for the plaquanil to build up in the system. I do not have a lot of experience with the Plaq....as it is the wrong med for my particular arthritis. I am sure someone else will be on to help soon.

Take care and know that it is pretty normal and she should take the pred as perscribed. Thanks for taking good care of her.

< =text/>_popupControl(); Her morning sounds pretty normal and typical for the point she is at on her meds.

The plaquenil is a first line drug in treating RA. It is an antibiotic that was first used to treat malaria and then it was found it actually can help arthritis. Sometimes plaquenil can be a little on the slow side to see results from. It can take up to 6 months sometimes to see results from it. Most people and docs do not wait that long tho if it is showing that the med is not working. You should probably give it about 3 months and if no results, then it is time to change or add meds. You can tell that it is working (or any med for that matter) when her morning stiffness starts to take less and less time to go away everyday. Hopefully one day she will wake up and not have any!! If she has joint pain and swelling going on...that will also calm down a lot too.

As far as the pred goes...most of us strive to not be on it for a long period of time. Her dose right now is pretty low. The purpose of the pred is to try and get the swelling down in a quick period of time. She will have to taper or wean off of it. The reason she needs some pred is that her body (or anyones with RA or PA etc.) does not produce enough corticosteriod on it's own. So we need a little help with that sometimes to take care of swelling. For example...I'm stuck in a flare right now. I am going on a tapering dose of pred to give my body that little extra oomph it needs to take care of swelling and kick out this flare. As far as cutting her pred pill...does she seem to stiffen up and swell at night? If so, then by all means she can certainly cut her pill and take one in the morning and one in the evening. Does she seem to be responding to the 5mg of pred? Is her swelling going down?

Hope she gets better quickly!!!

Bro,

I am pretty new to this whole thing and have not used pred probably near enough for the pain that I have had. Liz(gramma) makes good sense and she has been around the treatment of this disease a lot longer than I have. I am still trying to digest how this has changed my life so dramatically.

Sorry if I have caused any confusion. Listen to the experts...and I am not one of them.

< =text/>_popupControl(); Shelly...I think you gave a totally appropriate answer to the posted question. It is always better to say that you do not know about something than to give false info and false hope. You are right...someone around here will come along soon enough and have an answer to the questions.

Yeah I have been around the treatments for awhile and do a ton of research even more so now that Danielle has it too.

Bro...my 12 year old daughter has JRA and is on plaquenil and it works really well for her. She does take it in conjunction with Celebrex..a prescribed (expensive sheeesh) anti-inflammatory to help the plaquenil along. If it is possible for your sister to get into a nice hot shower first thing in the morning that will help that morning stiffness also. We do that with Danielle when she has a weather flare and it has actually helped so much she was able to manage a full day of school despite flaring with the weather. I'm sure later on people will be here with other hints and tips to help your sister with her morning stiffness. Some people get up and move around SLOWLY to help loosen themselves up.

I'm on Plaq. (6 months now) It took at least 4-5 months to kick in. I was on Pred too....which didn't do anything for me at all....well, I guess I can't say that, because it might have been helping while I was waiting for the Plaq. to get in my system. But I weaned off the pred about 1 month or so ago.

I'm actually worse by the end of the day..which isn't the "norm"...I'm just beat, feel fluish...and the more I use my hands- the worse they hurt.

But according to my Dr, the Plaq. has stopped the progression of joint damage, so that's good! He said people don't realize how much the Plaq. is working...unless they went off it---then they'd be saying, "Hmmm...now I'm really in pain- I guess it was working..."