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...
My blood work came back with elevated asp and alt. Would prednisone help to lower them. I'm on arava and celebrex. My dr suggested that i take it a while ago but I have been reluctant. Weight gain issues. But this might be a game changer if it will reduce the liver and kidney dammage.
However, perhaps taking the prednisone would decrease your need for Arava and celebrex and then by extension help your liver/kidneys.
But, Arava is known to be bad on the liver (it carries a black box warning). When my liver panel went wonky, my Dr. immediately cut my Arava dosage in half.
When my liver ezymes skyrocketed due to MTX, I got pulled off primary suspects first. Even reducing MTX to half didn't help. In fact, reducing to half - and my enzymes continued increasing for a few more weeks.
My liver doctor and rheum. doc said that if I needed help for RA while off the MTX, that predinisone was acceptable to take, but their preference was to take nothing at all til the ezymes reduced...so I don't think pred will help your liver. (but apparently, it won't hurt it either)
Oddly enough the only pain killer I could use was tylenol, but only regular dose. Apparently it's super safe taken as directed but in greater quantity, it can be fatal.
I'm terribly sorry that your liver is angry. Oh how I wish mine could take MTX or similar. It's no fun to be limited in drug options.