I have been injecting the 50mg Enbrel twice a week for a month now for plaque psoriasis. I am a lifetime psoraisis sufferer who is always praying for a cure. The Enbrel has worked miracles on my psoraisis , but the price tag for this are these welts all over my body. I have never had an allergic reaction until now. Is anyone else having this problem? It seems to come and go and if I inject only once a week it doesn't seem to be as bad. My deratologist keeps saying that none of his other patients have had reactions and to just give it time, but I am losing my mind here. It seems to be trading one problem for another.... Hang in there! I got the site reaction after about 6-8 weeks. I now take one of the acid inhibitors the one that starts with cimitidine.. . . or something like that, I think it's generic Tagamet. It inhibits the allergic reaction and has really helped with the welts. Now I hardly get anything at all and for a long time I had raised, scorching hot, ouchy red spots. Try the acid inhibitor. I take it the day of injection and then for 2 days afterward.
Thanks Kate. I appreciate the encouragement. I will try your suggestion. I have been taking atarax for the allergic reactions. It works pretty well. After my last injection, I didn't have any reaction. Very strange...I also started getting softball size injection site reactions about two months after starting Enbrel. They lessened and are tolerable now.
I do notice that when I start a new lot of medicine, the reactions get worse as if my body is getting used to the new prescription, then they even out.wow..those must hurt. The attarax seems to have quieted the hives for the time being. Alot of people have found that their allergic reactions do go away after time. Supposedly the preservative in the enbrel biologic solution creates some allergic reactions.I use the twice weekly 25mg which need to be mixed-no preservative. You might want to request that (make sure they don't give you the new premixed 25mg setup).
In addition the the softball size reaction I also developed hives, especially in older injection sites. That too has gotten better.
I started having my husband inject the backs of my arms simply because the area was smaller so the injection site reaction could only get so big.
I found the thigh to be the worst place to inject.I started injecting into my stomach and so far no hives. I will say that enbrel has cleared my psoraisis about 90% in two months. For that I can accept a little trade-off of welts once in a while.
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