Drugs, Drugs and more Drugs

I think I have tried just about every drug out there for RA (rheumatoid Arthritis), Lupus and UCTDIt sure the hell seems like it anyway.  They either don’t work or I am severely allergic to them. I thought it might be interesting to list all of the medications I have tried just in the last 3 years, or shall I say the ones I can remember.  I had a list with all of them but they were on my old computer and I need to get a new hard drive and blah, blah, blah, you know how that story goes. 
So here is the list:

·         Methotroxate
·         Cell Cept
·         Enbrel
·         Rituxan  IV
·         Remicade IV
·         Orencia IV
·         Imuran
·         Indomethacin
·         Azathioprine
·         Mobic
·         Meloxicam
·         Humira IV

So after having tried all of these my rheumatologist wanted me to take a break and see if something else would be coming out soon that I would be able to try. So after few months, he suggested Actemra IV.  Now normally if I am going to have bad reaction it will happen right there during the treatment.  This time it didn’t.  I felt fine, well you know exhausted but nothing major.  My aches and pains went up a bit and so did my exhaustion, but that is totally understandable considering you are having all of these drugs poured into your system.

Well by Sunday I couldn’t breathe. My entire bodice area was so sore I couldn’t handle anything touching it.  When I would breathe, if I took small breaths it wasn’t quite as painful as if I tried to take a full breath.  I kept thinking it would get better or go away. 

Monday I ended up seeing my PCP to see what was going on.  After her examining me she told me she wanted me to go to E.R. and have some blood work done and a CT scan.  She was worried about me having a PE (pulmonary embolism) or that my abdomen might have perforated.  She called ahead to E.R. so that they would know why I was there and what needed to be done.  Oh, the reason she sent me to E.R. was that by the time she was done seeing me it was after hours so basically nothing was open.

Note to self: that doesn’t mean a damn thing to them.  I waited over 3 hrs to get to see the triage and then another 2 hours just to get inside to have a chance to see the E.R. doctor.   I will tell you more about this later. 

So I have tried numerous medications in just about all forms.  I have had pills, IV’s, and have even had to give myself shots.  For the most part these drugs did not work.  If they did they did not last for long at giving me any relief.  So then we would try something new.  It does a get a bit discouraging and overwhelming and sometimes downright depressing once you realize all of the types of things you have tried to do, to get some relief.  And I am just talking about the main drug here, I could probably right several more posts on different types of treatments, herbs, supplements, eating, etc that I have tried as well.  When I ended up in the hospital I was wondering if this could be an allergic reaction to my latest drug that I had just tried…

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