Hello, everyone. I'm new here. I was wondering if there was anyone out there who has been through pregnancy with their RA and what meds they were taken off of, stayed on, etc. Currently I'm on mtx and enbrel. I understand that I'll have to come off of the mtx. My question was with the enbrel. If you stayed on it during pregnancy how was it? If your MD took you off, why? Did anyone get a second opinion? Should I see a female rheumatologist or stay with my same one? I want to start trying within the next year or so and my husband and I are wondering what some of you out there have experienced. Please share with me. You can post or email me directly at deeslu@yahoo.com Thank you all very much. I went through this a few years ago. My little one will turn 2 on the 30th.
I was pulled of MTX for a number of months before hand. As for the
Enbrel-we talked about it for a bit. It is still a new drug and that is what
made me nervous. So-I came off that as well. My OBGYN and my RD
worked together during the pregnancy. They both agreed with the Enbrel
decision. I basically took between 5-10mg of prednisone during
pregnancy. The only real side effect from that can be premature delivery.
Well, every single women in my family has had early labor so I decided
that I had that risk anyway. My son did come 5 weeks early but was
perfect in every way. No problems what so ever. The dr. feels that there
were other reasons for the early birth-not the pred.
They say that pregnancy causes the RA to go into remisson. I never felt
that. I had an extremely stressful pregnancy(ended up seperating and
then divorcing-fun) and I know that is the RA was so active. That is also
what probably resulted in the early labor. What I think will be the hardest
will be the weeks after you give birth. Those first few weeks you have all
the newness of the baby and the excitement. Then the RA tends to come
back. My RD was great and told me to call when I started having
problems and she would fit me in that week. She actually called every
weekend there for the first few weeks just to check in.
Anyway--it was worth every second. I don't know what the latest is with
the Enbrel. This was 2 1/2 years ago. I just felt that anything that
affected me at a cellular level was not something that I wanted to be on
while pregnant. I am also a science teacher so maybe I tend to
overanalyze.
Good luck to you...I am actually trying to plan a 2yr old birthday party.
How time changes things!
BeckyHello, I'm also new to this forum but I've had RA for about 16 yrs. Last year I had my first child (boy) and he's 13 mths now. Before I was pregnant my rheumatologist advised I stop taking Methotrexate for 6 mths (but he said in the future possibly 3 mths would also be ok), Sorry I don't have experience with Enbrel. During the pregnancy I stayed on prednisone (10 mg) which worked well for me, but I had to take more glucose tests. My rheumatologist didn't really have much to do with this, the OBGYN sent me to a high-risk pregnancy OB who I saw regularly. One thing I don't know if you were aware of (I wasn't) but for some women with an autoimmune disease there is some sort of antibody that crosses the placenta that could affect the heart of the baby (sorry this is layman's terms). Anyway I had a blood test that came up positive for this so during my second trimester I had to go for ultrasounds every 2 weeks to watch the baby's heart. The specialist was monitoring it, but I also got to see more of the baby in there
Copyright ArthritisInsight.com