Well its now been just over a year with diagnosis with Psoriatic Arthritis and the Remicade infusions. Started at 2 vials every 8 weeks, then to 4, then 5, then the timeframe was cut back to 6 weeks... moved to six, now seven... he's increasing again to eight...
I'm only 25, turning 26 next month but the pain still only stays away for a good two to three weeks tops... With 6 vials/6 weeks I'm ok for the first three weeks but the pain slowly comes back, its on the "Unbearable level" in the last week... getting up from a prone position is like ripping my body in two. Granted the pain isn't nearly as bad as it was before treatment but from what I've been told, my necks already got some massive fusion as well as some fingers and possibly somewhere along my lower back...
I guess I'm curious to know what the maximum dose would be... he's talking about bringing it down to four weeks but the week after every infusion I feel weak... My last infusion was last Wednesday and the whole week I've had a hard time getting up for classes because I'm just weak and can't seem to even sleep at night at times (like tonight).
Otherwise it works pretty good... Certainly not like It did in the beginning and theres talks about resistance but otherwise I should refill my MTX, I've run out for the past week and havn't had the function to get up and do so. However its something that I need to survive nowadays. Without these infusions, I wouldn't be getting through college and working as some nights I do good to get by with that...
And on another note, whats this about remission... I've never been that fortunate yet they havn't ever given me a strong enough dose to really make it go away for the duration in between my treatments. I hope they find a way to fix this some day because at my age, getting up from a chair and having to use my arm on something to brace myself shakin and making involuntary grunting noises to handle the pain, is certainly not my idea of reduced pain lol!
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