My daghter is on both MTX and Ambrol. She wants to get off the MTX all together. Is this a wise thing? Her last blood work showed her C-reactive was in the normal range and her Westegren was only slightly elevated. If she has no joint pain can she still be getting joint damage or does the pain go hand in hand with possible damage?
Do suppliments help? I thing my daughter eats not the most healthy foods, I always tell her to eat better, but she does not really listen.
Anything that helps? She drinks a lot of diet soda too.
Open to any input
The doctors often start with both and then lower the MTX. So, it is something she needs to bring up with her doctors and follow his advice. Hopefully, the Enbrel is stopping the joint damage. But pain and xrays are the only thing that really can prove that. Good bloodwork though is an excellent indicator that the medicines are working.
She might be having a problem with the side effects of MTX as they do tend to wipe most of us out the day of and day after taking it. That might be one reason she is so anxious to get off of it.
I assume that she is very young. You might try to get her on this board and another called http://rasushi.jconserv.net. We have a lot of young people that have had JRA. It might help her deal with all of this better and find some friends that understand what she is going through.
Eating healthy does help. There are vitamins that are particulary good for RA. But that should be a separate post.
I know you are worried. Your perfectly welcome to hang around here. A lot of family members do and we just love that because sometimes families do not get it. But do encourage her to find some place where she can belong. It is a painful disease and hard to adjust to.
With her doctors approval she can probable lower her MTX dose each week and see how she does.
If she does well on the lower dose a while then she could lower it more later. I'd advise to decease slowly and I'm sure her doctor would as well.
I was on Enbrel and MTX. My goal was to get off of the MTX to try and get some energy back. My doc had me decrease the dosage slowly over about a 4 month period. I had been on 15mg. It worked fine. I do seem to have some more energy but still some pain in my wrists. Just had a dr appt on Monday and he said everything looks good and I have no swelling.