Again, my rheumy appointment today was worrisome to me. Bad news is that everything is still really aggressive despite us adding Arava to the mix a few months ago. My current labs and exam as well as previous recent MRIs show that I still need more help. The anemia is worse and the long-term Prednisone is taking a toll on my diabetes. My hands will not even open now and my labs are all over the place. Good news is that since I have been on INH treatment for a month now (for the positive TB test) rheumy states we cannot wait any longer to start a biologic and that they will start working with Medicare today to see which biologic they will let us try. She would like to try Xeljanz first and see if they can get Medicare to approve it, but we may be looking at Remacade. She said shed also be happy with Embrel. She said the advantage of Xeljanz was with it being pill form if I get an infection, it can be immediately stopped to where the IVs and injections take a little longer to clear the system. I dont really understand what the difference is with all of these meds. I have read about them but its a little over my head trying to understand them. It will require more concentration than I have had lately.

She talked about how I will be more prone to serious infections, malignancies, cardiac risks, and other auto-immune conditions such as lupus, but she said with as aggressive as this disease has been for me I am facing all of that anyway (High risk). Anyway I am to call her office in two weeks if I havent heard from them yet to check on the progress. Im pretty bummed out but at least its something we havent tried yet.