Here are some photos of my new joints that I took yesterday morning at 10 am. If you remember the swollen joints from the photos that I posted about a month ago, you will see a remarkable change. The change happened overnite. When I woke up on Saturday morning, I got out of bed, went to the bathroom, and kitchen and all of a sudden, I realized that I wasn't gimping or hurting. I looked at my joints and was amazed. They are even better today. A little history. I had been pretty crippled. I couldn't clean or dry my ears or dry my back or almost impossible to get up from the commode. . I started with Prednisone. Then prednisone and mtx. Then prednisone, mtx and enbrel. I had my life back. Not back to normal, but certainly not crippled. I was satisfied but my rheumatologist wasn't and suggested humira to see if the effects would be better than enbrel. Completely the opposite, no effect and so back to enbrel. My rheumatologist suggested that I try rituxin. I had my 2 infusions of rituxin early this year. It took almost two months for the rituxin to work but I actually started walking again, first 4 laps every morning and then 6 laps every morning and every evening and no pain. About a month and a half ago the rituxin started to wear off and so the pictures you saw were of my joints with not the full effect of the rituxin. I saw my rheumatologist on last monday and he suggested another round of 2 rituxin infusions and on Friday I was in the easy chair in oncology getting my first 250mg of rituxin. On Saturday morning, these are the photos I took and here they are. I still have another infusion in two weeks. I hope that for those that worry about your biologic stopping being effective that you will realize that there are new drugs that may very well be even more effective. Click on the link for the photos of my "new joints".
I love happy stories. Good for you. I am sincerely glad you are feeling better. Way cool walking in the mornings.Way past cool. I was pretty happy with the enbrel. Anyway, here is the link to my old joints in case you missed them.