Today I had a follow up appointment to check on how I was responding to Plaquinil. I told him about the bad flare I had last week. I still have some swelling, but its gone down alot. He has now put me on methotrexate and folic acid. I'm not happy, but reading about how others wish they had taken this step earlier, I have decided to take my first dose this weekend. After 4 weeks, I have another appointment and we will start tapering the predisone. He also stopped the plaquinil.Good luck with the mtx. It's worked very well for me. Ditto the good luck, hope it works well for you.
I only stopped because the side effects were intolerable for me (don't worry, my side effects were rare! And they came on after a long time on the metho) Otherwise it was amazing for my joints, it was as though I didn't have arthritis at all. I was started on it pretty immediately after diagnosis (4 months or so....after naproxen and diclofenac weren't enough) and after 2 and a half years on it I had no joint erosion whatsoever. (I don't even want to think about how much erosion I have now!)
good luck, caprice! Hope it does wonders for you!Good luck, honestly, it didn't help much but it does seem to help the majority of people. Good luck!
Good luck with the mtx. It works for me but I had to add a biologic to get it work at its optimum for me.