I am new to this page and i just want to say how great it is to find new friends when you are having a hard time. I am not an arthritis sufferer myself but my daughter has RA for 19 years. She is now 22 and is doing well although she has her ups and downs. She has been for 2 years on Remicade, she then passed for 2.5 years to Humira and is now considering getting back to Remicade which made wonders for her. The only problem was her terrible flares a few days before any new injection, which we hope to overpass by getting the drug as soon as she feels that its losing its power. This happened about every 5-6 weeks.
I would like to hear any opinions or similar experiences from you,since any change is always too stressful-but I guess that you know
Love
abyfromgreece
Hello...and Welcome
I'm on Humira weekly and I get about 5 good days out of it. It's something I've pretty much come to expect....and my last few days are not unbareable so I have considered myself pretty lucky.
It does seem to be less effective than it has in the past and I too am considering Remicade as my next option. Why did your daughter swtich from Remicade to Humira in the first place? (If you don't mind me asking)
My doctor originally gave me all the options and let me decide which to choose. I chose Humira because at the time I only had to do the injections bi-weekly. I only had minumal results with that for 6 months. At that point I switched to weekly. That did help a great deal. Over the summer though I had an infection which resulted in me discontinuing the use of all my meds for about a month. Since I've resumed things have not quite picked back up to where they were before. It might just take some time...but I'm not so sure.
I also take 22.5mg of MTX weekly. You didn't mention this with your daughter. Honestly I don't think my combination would work half as good wit out it.
Please incourage your daughter to join us. We do have several younger ladies here that I'm sure she would find supportive....as well as the rest of us.
Ask anyone here and they will all tell you that having the support of others in the exact same situations as them has been a God send. It's so helpful to us all.
Best of luck to you and your daughter.
Lovie
Welcome to AI.
I am not on any biologics as of this post but will be put on Enbrel the end of October, so I can not really answer your questions but from what I have been reading here on the board, is that that when going off Remicade, and on to a biologic, MTX needs to be added for some people and that gives better results with the new biologic. I also have read that some people had to return to Remicade.
We encourage your daughter and yourself to join us at AI, as I have found it to be a very encouraging facture as how I live daily with RA.
Looking forward to posting with you and your daughter.
Waddles (Toni)
[QUOTE=Lovie]Hello...and Welcome
I'm on Humira weekly and I get about 5 good days out of it. It's something I've pretty much come to expect....and my last few days are not unbareable so I have considered myself pretty lucky.
It does seem to be less effective than it has in the past and I too am considering Remicade as my next option. Why did your daughter swtich from Remicade to Humira in the first place? (If you don't mind me asking)
My doctor originally gave me all the options and let me decide which to choose. I chose Humira because at the time I only had to do the injections bi-weekly. I only had minumal results with that for 6 months. At that point I switched to weekly. That did help a great deal. Over the summer though I had an infection which resulted in me discontinuing the use of all my meds for about a month. Since I've resumed things have not quite picked back up to where they were before. It might just take some time...but I'm not so sure.
I also take 22.5mg of MTX weekly. You didn't mention this with your daughter. Honestly I don't think my combination would work half as good wit out it.
Please incourage your daughter to join us. We do have several younger ladies here that I'm sure she would find supportive....as well as the rest of us.
Ask anyone here and they will all tell you that having the support of others in the exact same situations as them has been a God send. It's so helpful to us all.
Best of luck to you and your daughter.
Lovie
[/QUOTE]Thanks for the reply!
My daughter switched from Remicade to Humira although she had never any reactions an although she was incredibly well for 5-6 weeks, only because she had some terrible flares one or two days before any new injection and since experience was not so big at that time-about 5 years ago- her doctor was a bit unwilling to let her have the medication too often,being afraid that her flares meant that she had an infection-about 5 or six weeks. From what I see now, things are not so strict anymore and every patient is having his/her time schedule according to his needs. Also, we believed that Humira being newer would solve these problems. She has quited Metho which she used to take for years, because she had a kind of nervous reaction to it.
Waiting for a reply.Thanks again
abyfromgreece
I'm no exbert on Biologics. The only experience I have is my own....I've been on Humira since December 04. I do believe though that MTX is key in this treatment. That might not be the case for everyone though.
Today is a good day for me. Sunday, Monday Tuesday and most of Wednesday are good days. Come Thursday until Saturday evening I steadily go down hill. (I take all my meds on Saturday so I can rest most of the day on Sunday as it makes me very tired)
Can you elaboratae on what sort of reaction your daughter had to MTX? I've taken it for more than three years now with no side effects...but I am well aware that certain problems can arrise years later. Am I understanding you correctly that this is what happened with your daughter? Any idea what dosage she was on at the time of her reaction?
Just curious.
Dear Lovie
About methotrextate, i cannot tell you for sure what exactrly bothers my daughter. She says that she is feeling nervous and has a strange something but she cannot explain to me. Anyway, she started it again and we are waiting to see
Thanks
Abyra
Abyra~I hope things are better for her this time on MTX...it's really been a good medication for me, but I've had RA long enough to know that things can change over time. What works well today might not work well in 6 month or a year. That's just part of living with this disease as I'm sure you and your daughter have learned after all these years.
Keep us updated on her progress...and encourage her to join us. We'd love to have her here.