it has been awhile..

helo,

thanks you I am very excited about te baby!

I am still taking Metho, and celebrex. I will keep taking them. Geting my blood work done. Yes he can up the metho. I just do not want to die of cancer casue I took some drug. Or drop dead while getting this IV treatment cause they did not know I have something wrong with my heart. It is all way to over welmeing for me. I am scared to death of being one of the ones that get that lung fungi and have it kill me.

the fear right now out weighs the pain. I take the metho on saturdays. on sunday I am tired. by Monday I am dizzy and off balance. that last until like Thurs. I start to feel better and it is time to take it again. my bloodwork showed my number were starting to come down. I know what this is Ra is doing to my bady. I know I am not alone on this fear of these drugs they pump into your body. Maybe after having it for a longer time of having this I will be ready to take them, or maybe they will come out with better drugs. I went from not taking anything becasue I have such bad side affects from anything I was given in the past. To taking these big time drugs that may do some big time damage.

right now I am just so tired! I have to rest. I want to do some fall cleaning in the kitchen. so I am going to rest now..

thanks again :)

sue

I do get it - you have to be at a place where the risk is worth it.  And that takes time.  You may never get there, but if you do, I wanted to give you a peek at the other side of the coin so it'd be less scary.

Looking forward to hearing more baby news!

Sue,

I know how you feel...I scared my self silly reading on all the things I am taking.  I have been on Celebrex for about 15-16 months, at some point before my knee replacement my doctor had me taking 2 a day as the gel injections gave me in my knees caused so much inflamation I could barely walk and the pain was awful.

Then a few months ago I found that I had RA...still having pain in the knee that was replaced and had carpal surgery then the RA came...doctors said it was a coincidence? I probably had it and the surgery just brought the symtoms out? Any way, I statred out with 8 meths, three prednisones, three sulpher, one to two hydrocodone a day, one to get up and make it to work, one at night to help the pain so I could sleep.  I look back and before I went on the meds, I could barely get out of bed.  I still used the port a chair the hospital gave me when I had surgery cause I just felt I could not make it to the restroom that was a few feet away.  It was hard to just stand and get to the chair.  I had a stool in the shower...there were times I wanted to use my walker again...

Well, I still have pain but the meds have helped, my OB Gyn told me to stop taking them as I was taking too much in his opinion and only take Enbrel injections..after three days I felt like I was going back to square one.  So, I am on week five of Enbrel, lower dose of 6 meths a week, down to one prednisone (I can feel the difference lowering this one) and I am trying to only take the Celebrex when my knees are just to painful to get through a day at work.  I still break a Hydro in half, it is a low dose and take it at night to help sleep, I have restless legs and pain some nights in my right angle and foot.  I like you have a new grandson, the same daughter had a baby 18 months ago and I at that time could not baby sit or pick up her up.  Now the grandson is five weeks old and even though depending on the pain level I can pick him up and I am not afraid of dropping him, it still hurts but it is worth it.  I have what I call good and bad pain days, never pain free, but a lot of that is the Osteoarthritis I have in my knees.  I need to find a good Rhuemy, I am not fond of the one I have.  He doesn't read my chart till he is in front of me and then not well and will ask me things about meds I am not even on, I know they make mistakes and they see a lot of patients but he really blows my questions off or ignores them.  I will call and it takes a week for a nurse to call me back with blood work results.

I have read enough to know that you have to make a choice this desease will most likely progress and cripple or kill me...you have to weigh the risk...I prefer the quality of life and the chance of stopping or slowing down RA so I take the drugs.  I also feel like that when it is our time it just is...so I pray a lot and I have been very lucky so far that I have not had yet any side effects from the drugs or injections except from being a bit tired and an occasional headache from the meth.  I choose to take it about noon at work so that it does not mess up my weekend with my family.

Take care of your self and it is a personal decision, I hurt but it is bearable and I can do things I want again, sometimes I do too much and I do have to really be careful as it does come back and bite me sometimes.  I actually cleaned three rooms of carpet in my house last weekend.  Before I was lucky to make it to the living room from my bed.  I was tired but things I use to take for granted I am thankful for, like cleaning the oven a couple of weeks ago, I was proud of my self...heehee!  Feel better, I will say a prayer for you...Peace and Grace, Audrey