Help with choices

[Kim from New Zealand]

Greetings all!

I have been doing the AP for 9 years now and have been delighted.  In recent months I have been in great pain – but no flare-ups.  I suspected something new and more.  My (new) doctor sent me to a (new) rheumatologist at the local hospital.

He is gentle and kind and doesn't mind using the AP.  (A huge difference to the other man 9 years ago!)

He reckons that the R.A. has become too virulent for the mild Minocycline that I take (I was on Minocycline HCL Ca 100mg (WYE) I took one in the morning).  He gave me two cortizone injections (TG – they took me back from being suicidal!) and he has given me three medications that he would rather that I use:

1. Leflunomide (Arava)

2. Salazopyrin (Sulphasalazine)

3. Plaquenil (Hydroxychloroquine).

He says that I can choose one OR we can use something else if I don't like any of those three.

I simply don't know what to do now.  Please can someone there tell me what these three are, which to use, OR what else I can try.

thanks heaps.

Kim

 

 

[lynnie_sydney]

Kim – all 3 of the drugs the rheumatologist has offered you are in the conventional basket – and all come with degrees of risk. The only one I have personal experience with is sulfasalazine. I was on that for around 18 months some years ago and it did put me in remission for a few years. However, I was not willing to stay on it with all the attendant risks associated with it. My AP Doc now says that it is probably the antibiotic component of the drug that worked for me and that the sulfa component most likely did me damage.

Your rheumie's statement about “mild” minocycline no longer doing the job comes from the conventional rheumatology perspective that minocycline acts as a DMARD in early or mild RA – that is the basis on which it is approved by the American College of Rheumatology. I guess it depends on whether you believe that it has a greater action than this and subscribe to the infectious origin theory as per Dr Brown.

What may be worth considering, if you are to continue with an antibiotic approach, is to change your antibiotic, perhaps to doxycycline. Dr Brown always recommended that the antibiotic be rotated after around the 4 year mark.

Others will no doubt chime in with their persepctives. There are some on this Forum who are using plaquenil in combination with one of the tetracyclines to treat their Lyme Disease.

If you would like a list of AP Doctors for New Zealand and Australia, I will be happy to foward these to you if you Private Message me (PM) your email address. Just click on where it says 'no messages' above right and then send me a message to my Forum name lynnie_sydney. Lynnie

 

Be well! Lynnie

Palindromic RA 30 yrs (Chronic Lyme?)
Mino 2003-2008 100mg MWF - can no longer tolerate any tetracyclines
rotating abx protocol now. From Sep 2018 MWF - a.m. Augmentin Duo 440mg + 150mg Biaxsig (roxithromycin). p.m. Cefaclor (375mg) + Klacid 125mg + LDN 3mg + Annual Clindy IV's
Diet: no gluten, dairy, sulphites, low salicylates
Supps: 600mg N-AC BID, 1000mg Vit C, P5P 40mg, zinc picolinate 60mg, Lithium orotate 20mg, Magnesium Oil, Bio-identical hormones (DHEA + Prog + Estrog)

[carries]

Hi Kim! I take plaquinil along with the mino. I have not had any symptoms  or side effects as of now from them. I have been taking the plaquinil for 7years. Just be sure you get your eyes checked every year. Your optomologist will do a plaquinil field test.

[sierrra]

I had a bad experience with Arava. I sort of recoil when I read that word. Liver damage started to occur after only 5 weeks, hair loss began after stopping the drug.

Sierra

[heatherbell]

I know people who have been on all three.  Arava comes at the bottom of the list.  All the best.

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