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...

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Methotrexate injections

rd82
rd82
Hello, I have had RA for about a year. I hadn't been feeling great and my hands had been bothering me for a while. I had blood work done which showed an elevated RA factor. After trying more meds than I can remember with no improvement my doctor put me on the methotrexate injections a few weeks ago. I had tried the oral version when I first got the diagnosis. The side effects were horrible so I was taken off the pills. Anyway, the side effects are not much better with the injections however I do feel better pain wise when I am not sick to my stomach. My question is...I am traveling for the holidays (driving) and my injection day is the day before I leave. Can I change the day ? I really do not want to be sick with a car full of kids for 6 hours. Any advice would be appreciated.
2leftfeet
2leftfeet
I would call your Dr, but I would think he would be OK with this. When I have had to discontinue my MTX because I was sick, going to have surgery, tests where they wanted me mtx free for a while - what I would do is whatever day I started back on the mtx, those would become my new days for my drug.

I take pill form, not shots.
51percent
51percent
I've had to change my day for various reasons(been taking MTX for over 10 years and by injection for 9). I choose my day by when I get my monthly blood work for MTX. I do that on Wednesdays so I inject on Fridays....you get the best results if the blood work is done 5 days after your injection.

So do your shot that night after you arrive so you're only 1 day off then get back to your regular day after that. If you want to change it by 2 days then the following week make it 1 day off then by week 3 you're back to your normal day.

Jen
rd82
rd82
Thank you for the advice. I will probably do it the night I arrive ,which is the day before Christmas eve. Hopefully all the yucky side effect stuff will have mostly worn off by Christmas.
MarleneJ
MarleneJ
I was on mthx for 10 years, and I varied the day all the time. Sometimes I forgot to take it, or sometimes I took it a day early, because we were traveling. It was never a problem. But I do admit, I didn't have very bad side effects, just a bit of nausea when I first started pills, before I switched to injectible.