avara | Arthritis Information

I would like to know if any of you lose your feeling in your finger tips from taking avara or are so tired you can't stand yourself. I am starting to decrease my predisone from 30 mg. here how I decreased it from 30mg to 20mg and now for 8 days it will be 15mg and then after 8 days I will try to go to 10mg and then 5mg and so on until I am off this awful stuff . My doctor don't tell me how so I am doing it myself. And sense I was on the avara I am having all these crazy things happening to me like serve tendon pain chest pain that kept me up all night it hurt to breathe and so tired all I do is sleep. I hate it. And when I called the doctor he told me to relax and to continue to take thse meds. That got me very upset and made me cry. it will be a month on the avara and 8 months on the predisone. I didn't start to feel weird until I started the avara and he will not listen to me. I told my family doctor I am so sick of being sick. I know I am whinning but it is one of those days. Joan

Sorry the Arava is not working out for you, but some of your symptoms seem to be the pred, but not sure. Just seems like something I went thru with being just on 15mg of pred.

I'm on Arava now, and I've had very good success with it. I do have some numbing in my fingertips - or sometimes strange tingling - and sometimes the sensation of splinters or paper cuts. I don't know whether that's the Arava or the RA, because I had other, different symptoms before the Arava. In general, after about a month, it let me do many of the things I used to do and gave me back a chunk of my life. I had about given up hope.

Only you can know when you've had enough, but I'm here to tell you it really can work.

The other thing is - you're coming off your prednisone awfully fast. That could also be causing some of your symptoms. While I hate taking it, I go down by about 1 mg. a month. It's the only way to prevent flares and keep the general pain at a minimum. You should have had some guidance in that.
going on to arava for psoriatic arthritis gave me back a life i thought wouldnt be possible. before arava i was on methotrexate and it didnt agree with me at all. i would take it on friday night and saturday i would be i bed all day with my partner having to walk me to the bathroom. i would then feel achey and tired through till wed. thursday i would feel just ok and then friday depressed knowing that it was going to start all over again. with the arava i still feel tired and the pain still goes over the top of the two 200mg tramadol, i feel more human than i have in 4 years.I've been doing well on the Arava. I started it in November I think. My only complaint is hairloss and (ahem) diarreah pretty regularly but not so much that I need to take any Immodium or anything. my dr. also started me on the 1/2 the lowest dose (10mg) siince I have troubles with a lot of meds. He said we'll see how I do on 1/2 the dose and if I start having pains he'll increase it to the full dose (20mg). He didn't feel that I should rush to the full dose and have a possible neg reaction. So far so good. I wish you luck.

Angel57,

I onced decreased my prednisone my own way. By playing doctor it wasn't long before just to roll over in bed wore me out. I eventually ended up at urgent care. It is my opinion that you are going way too fast decreasing the prednisone. I can't remember whether i had tingling or not. I believe that it is very important that you check with a doctor about decreasing prednisone. I usually have to go 1/2 or 1 mg every 2 weeks. I am pretty sure that you are reducing in a pretty dangerous way. Quick reduction may cause Addison's disease. Guess what the symptoms are? Extreme fatigue, numbness, muscle weakness, loss of appetite, irritability, depression and etcs. Those were my symptoms except i had no energy to be irritable. The only reason i am posting this is because Fiona mentioned it to you but not sure she stressed it enough for you to pay attention.

LEV

Angel

those symptoms are far more likely to be due to the decrease in the pred. You are moving it down WAY too fast for as long as you have been on it. I just read in the Arthritis Today that a taper should take as long as you were on it. So you have been on pred for 7 months it should take about 7 months to taper. You've been on a huge dose for a long time and in barely 2 weeks you've dropped the dose in half. You need to be dropping by 1 mg increments not 15mg

Call your doctor and get advice on the taper. Until then leave the dose alone. Your adrenal glands need to adjust

Oh thank you for the advice on the predisone. I feel so sick today head hurts fingers I can't feel. I have to see my rhemy this coming tuesday. sometimes I just don't have faith in him. When I called him before I started to decrease the preisone I told him how I felt on the avara and he told his nurse to tell me to relax and forget about the side affects and take the meds even if I could not breathe that scared the hell out of me I thought oh my god is this going to be like this or don't he care what happends to me. I have High Blood presure take meds for that and my stomach. I get my compasion from my doctor than this . I should be feeling better it's been 8 months now. I ask him to take blood test he don't even do that and that scares me to. I read of all the things that doctors do for you all and mine doesn't seems to be concerned about it. Well anyway thanks to you all for your concern and compasion. JoanIf you are having chest pain and having difficulty breathing, you need to call
your doctor. It may be related to coming off the pred but it could be
something else, like a blood clot in your lung or a heart attack. These
things can happen at any age, to anyone. Please follow up on this.

Angel57,

One more thing. If i were you i would bump my prednisone up 5mgs to ease the pain, won't hurt anything but will make you feel better. Also, one of the symptoms i had coming down too fast on the prednisone was shortness of breath bigtime. Up the pred and enjoy the weekend.

LEV

Oh, i guess that was two things. Oh well, both are free.