Hi All,
Brand new to this board. My son was diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis in November 06. He has no psoriasis, he was ana negative and then the next blood work came back ana positive. Sooo, we started with Relafen, it worked for a couple of weeks, but soon stopped working, in the mean time he was diagnosed with uveitis -
Next the doctor tried Voltaren, but it doesn't stop the pain he feels every morning (he can barely walk to the bathroom). The doctor wants to start Humira, but is giving me time to think about it. I have read through the side effects and I am really worried for my boy.
My doctor is supposedly one of the top Pediatric Rheum Docs in the US. My husband thinks I should let go of worry and try the Humira -
If anyone can give me any of their thoughts please let me know. Also, the doctor said we could try sulfasalazine, but that would take a long time if it were to work and that my 7 year old boy is getting depressed by the minute. (he was the fastest runner in his grade last year and now has a hard time walking up to the front door of his school each day.)
Our occular immunologist (eye doc.) thinks Humira is a great drug and says we should give it a try-
Thanks for reading
Snick
Snick; I took Humira for two years with great results; but I took it for RA and I also took a great deal of Methotrexate with it.
Your son is so young. Bless his heart; I'm real sorry he has to start this journey at such a young age. Luckily for me I was in my early 20ties before I was dx'ed with RA.
The medications you mentioned are only antinflammatories. That's not much more help than advil for him. I'd be hesitant to jump right into Humira without giving one of the other DMARDS (medications used to slow the progress of the illness)a try first. Your doctor is right; Sulfersalizine can take a while to work but it just might be a good medication for him and it would help avoid the whole injection process which can be scary even for us adults. Humira doesn't feel real good either. Some might disagree but I found it to be a very nerve racking process every week. (I took it weekly; your son would probable start bi-weekly) I don't think I'd want to start my 7 year old on it until I was sure that was the only option.
Is he too young to take Methotrexate? Have they mentioned that to you? Plaquinel? Both do take a little time to start to work; but once they do they can be used long term with out too many complications.
All that being said; I did like the results I got from Humira and other than a few infections I had very little problems with it. I eventually was taken off of it due to neruological problems MAYBE caused by Humira.
I'm sorry I'm not being very helpful. I'm afraid I may have confused you more.....but you asked; right?
Good Luck with what ever you choose.
Hi and welcome to the board. My heart goes out to you, your son, and your family. If this was my child (and I have a 22 year old daughter we suspect has RA but no insurance sigh) I would try whatever it is I could to help my baby have as normal of a life as possible. Yes, there are side effects to any of the meds that we have for arthritis. But I have to weigh that against quality of life for my child. I take Humira and I have had good results with it. I will warn you that it does burn when injected. But I consider that a small price in comparison to being able to get out of bed everyday and have a halfway normal life.Oh dear yet another child stricken with this nasty stuff! I have no experience with either of the drugs recommended to you, but I know what it is like to have a sick child. My heart goes out to you! His pain in the morning is very troublesome and not being able to WALK, I have found prednisone helps until the other drugs take affect, but not a good drug for children (!?), one mother knows prednisone helps her child and they put her on it for 20 days, it did do wonders. Good luck with all this and know that so many of us have suffered with this stuff and know as mothers how terrible, awful, mad this must make you!! The new drugs do really help but they just take a long time (months) to work. keep writing
sarah
Sarah's right. In fact when I was first dx'ed my doctor put me on predisone while we waited for the Sulfersalizine to start working. That might be an option. I don't know if they'll prescribe predisone for a child or not. If they'd give him humira I would think they'd give him a low dose of predisone for a short time period anyway.
Also; your insurance company might not even approve Humira until he's tried other treatment options first.(It's VERY expensive) I know I've heard of several adults being denied until they had exhasted other medications first.