Rheumatoid Arthritis Support Group
Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic, inflammatory, multisystem, autoimmune disorder. It is a disabling and painful condition which can lead to substantial loss of mobility due to pain and joint destruction. The disease is also systemic in that it often also affects many extra-articular tissues throughout the body including the skin, blood vessels, heart, lungs, and...
I had posted that my Rheumy was going to switch me from MTX to Sulfasalazine but I was mistaken it was actually Arava aka leflunomide. I've been off meds since December but I feel like some of the old symptoms are coming back very slowly & at a very low grade.
From what I've been reading i guess it's considered the "newer" version of MTX? But doesn't seem to be as effective or it's a hit & miss for a lot of people compared to MTX which seems to have a higher percentage of effectiveness.
I'm just a little concerned on it's toxicity to the liver since it's 20mg a day. As opposed to my MTX dosage of 2.5mg once a week!
On a side note, i have a Vegas trip in a few weeks. I'm wondering if I do decide to start taking the Arava I'm wondering can I stop a few days before, have a few drinks & then when i come back start it back up again? I guess that's a question better suited fro my Rheumy.
From what I've been reading i guess it's considered the "newer" version of MTX? But doesn't seem to be as effective or it's a hit & miss for a lot of people compared to MTX which seems to have a higher percentage of effectiveness.
I'm just a little concerned on it's toxicity to the liver since it's 20mg a day. As opposed to my MTX dosage of 2.5mg once a week!
On a side note, i have a Vegas trip in a few weeks. I'm wondering if I do decide to start taking the Arava I'm wondering can I stop a few days before, have a few drinks & then when i come back start it back up again? I guess that's a question better suited fro my Rheumy.
It is a DMARD, but it is not related to mthx in any way, except that it modifies the disease, and that it can affect the liver enzymes. Are you sure you weren't taking 25 mg of mthx once a week? That is the standard maximum dose. 2.5 mg would barely hit the bottom line on a needle.
Further, you can't compare doses on one drug to dose on a drug that is completely different. One drug might need 100 mg a day, and another .5 m a week. But they do things in different ways, although the end result is to suppress the RA, of course.
Finally, if I was starting to get flares again, and I was going on a drug that was going to take 2 months to work, I wouldn't be worrying about drinking and partying in Las Vegas! I don't drink at all, and haven't in over 35 years. But I still have a lot of fun without getting drunk. I was just talking to a woman that was a former alcoholic and so was her husband.She was counseling a relative, who was a very serious alcoholic and his complaint was that he wouldn't know how to live without partying and drinking. She told him to try it before he ruined his marriage and lost his job. He did and a year later she saw him and she said he couldn't stop talking about how much better his life was without drinking! That he was so much happier!
I was also an alcoholic (Not saying or implying you are!). I just know how much better and more fun and how much more happier and at peace that I am than I ever was in all my drinking and party years.
So you might want to think about that - instead of feeling deprived, think about how nice it might be to go to Vegas, and do the fun things, without the hangovers, and whatever other things that happen to you when you drink too much. Or even just a little, where the liver is concerned.
Of course, that is just my opinion, others here may disagree with me. Treatment of RA has to be the most important thing, not drinking. Get started on Arava sooner than later. Because if it doesn't work, it is going to take you a lot longer to realize it, then try and find something else. Why lose weeks and weeks in that process?