How are you doing? How are the hands? Time for another update on your hand surgery progression, please!
Much hugs to you!
Thank You Joonie, I'm doing wonderful, thanks for asking. The hands are doing great and both my surgeon and I are very pleased with the outcome. He said he could do a little tweaking here and there to straighten out some fingers but I'm happy with the way they are. Besides, I'm addressing other aches and pains right now such as one of my hips. My doc is trying to put off any kind of revision surgery for a while and so am I. I've been lucky, I've put a lot of miles on these replacement hips in the last 15 yrs.
So how's the remicade going? I loved it until it stopped working. I've been on Orencia for almost a year now and I'm feeling like it's been a waste of time.
Hugs Back Atcha!
15 years? That seems like a long time. How long are they normally suppose to last?
Glad the hands are doing well. Sorry your hips are giving your problems. Seems if it is not one thing it is another, huh?
The Remicade is going great! I actually have very little swelling and stiffness is not much either. RD was talking about taking me off, because of my rapid pulse and all that crazy crap, and I was willing to let her switch me to another, because it seemed the remicade was making me fatigued, but this last infusion I had no fatigue.
So... now I am rethinking not going off. Heck I am just enjoying not being inflammed to the max and the pain being much less.
Oh and I am weening off prednisone! I am down to 8mg. It will be pretty cool when I get pass the 5mg of pred and still doing well. But if I ever get took off Remicade I will be back at 10mg of pred. I will not be able to tolerate the RA without the pred.
Fantastic! If you feel that you don't need it and can come off the prednisone, then the remicade is doing it's job. We'll miss you in the "prednisone junkie" club.
I also had some fatigue while on the remicade but not as bad as the orencia. It sometimes seems like the orencia is adding to the fatigue. My RD assures me that the orencia still hasn't completely kicked in yet.
Uh-huh!
I know, I will miss being a pred junkie. But it will be a while before I will be off it completely. I have 8 more months of weening. And probably longer than that if I cannot get below the 5mg without withdrawls. But I am hopeful that I will not even notice a difference of not having the pred in me, as long as the remicade is working and in me. I already cannot tell when it is time for my next pred dose. Which I thought was the coolest thing ever! But still have to take it and ween... I know.
If orencia hasn't kicked in in a year it probably isn't going to. how long is your rheumatologist going to give it
My next infusion will be next Monday and the March infusion will be the 1 year mark. My RD hasn't set a timetable and since he works for me, I'll give it a year and then start considering other options. I can honestly say that before I stopped the remicade completely, the "less effective" remicade made me feel better than the orencia ever has. I think being on and off of the remicade so many times over a 5 year period may have been 1 of the reasons for it to lose it's effectiveness for me.
It seemss that Orencia isnt for a lot of people, I have spoken to a few people on other boards and my own friend who is on it hasnt had any joy with it either, she is also coming up for her 1 year mark too.
I am glad your hands are doing well though
BINGETHINKER....Happy to hear you are pleased with your hand surgery! I've had a couple of fingers worked on and both thumbs in the past. I can't say that's it's been that successful, as something new seems to always develop. Then again, I don't know where I'd be if I hadn't had the surgeries!
Sorry to hear Orencia isn't working for you. It will be a year for me in mid-May of this year. I still am experiencing improvement, almost no stiffness in the am and have managed to stay off Methotrexate since July. (I'm afraid to say much as I don't want to jinx myself...but I do want to encourage others to hang in there.) THIS DRUG DEFINITELY TAKES A LONG TIME TO BECOME EFFECTIVE. It hasn't put me in the "symptom-free" zone like Enbrel did, but I am definitely feeling better than when the Enbrel quit working. I'll be praying that all of you on Orencia (and the other drugs) have more relief soon!
Copyright ArthritisInsight.com