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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lionprincess00 02/28/2014

So I've noticed my tiny patch of faint freckles under one eye has turned into a raccoon brown speckled mess under both eyes. I googled and read Plaquenil can cause these brown sun spots. Anyone with info on this, or does anyone have knowledge as to whether or not they'll go away? I'm tempted to stop all Plaquenil right now in the name of beauty, but alas I know way better than to purposefully throw myself into a flare of all mother flares. I really want to know if it is temporary most of all.
Thx in advanced for any info on this!

nonightshades 02/28/2014

affirmative princess! but since I'm a man in my 50'2 i really couldn't care less about the appearance factor. heck, i was a long way from pretty before. from what i read these side effects from plaq are much less harmful than the other inhibitor drugs..and the plaq does work for me so i'll trade skin splotches for pain.....maybe they'll all run together and give me an even tan.

bluedogs2 02/28/2014

Am prepping for eye surgery - eye doc told me 6 months ago that if rheumy directed the p stuff to me, it would adversely impact both the condition I'm dealing with and place my eyes at risk during the time while taking the p stuff.

I don't take it and have no knowledge of skin issues relative to the p stuff -

51% is right - ask your derma

I'm like NNS - long past pretty and a lot more years too.

Be well all
Bluedogs2

deleted_user 02/28/2014

I've been on plaquinil for about 14 yrs now & have lots of dark spots, I never really thought about them being caused from the plaq, hmmm, maybe? I also have had a LOT of actenic keratosis (pre-cancerous sking lesions that have had to be frozen off, I have scars on my hands and arms from that, plus several basal cell skin ca's and a squamous cell ca on my hand , those were surgically removed. My rheumy says the skin ca's & pre-ca's are caused by the enbrel I've been on (for the same length of time). My skin is bad, esp on my hands/forearms, it's very thin and fragile. I'm sure all the yrs of drugs (including prednisone) have caused this. But what do ya do??!! I have started on a skin,hair & nails supplement, maybe it'll help!

SSusieFLA 04/05/2015

I took plaquenil for a little over a year, it made me itch at night-- took a while for me to finally narrow down the cause....it wasn't worth the sleepless nights...

timpelton 04/05/2015

I just started Plaquinil 2 weeks ago. My rheumy wanted me to completely taper off Prednisone, then start the Plaquinil, but I got down to !0 mg of Pred and my joints started getting really stabby and my wrists stopped working. So she allowed I could stay at 10 on the pred and start the Plaquinil along with a course of Hydroquinine. Over two weeks I've gotten a little bit worse. How long does it take for the Plaq to start earning it's keep?

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