Hey Everybody! After six long painful months, I feel like I am finally going to be free of the Interstitial Granulomatous Dermatitis caused by an allergic reaction to Remicade and all TNF inhibitors. It has been two weeks since I have had any new lesions on my hands or feet. They disappeared just before I was to start on Dapsone and three weeks after I stopped taking Methotrexate. I asked my dermatologist if maybe it was caused by TNFs and Methotrexate but she thinks it was just the TNFs and the methotrexate was just coincidental. She thinks it is just that it took that long for the TNFs to get totally out of my system.

At any rate, the dermo has me tapering off the prednisone. I am now at 15 mgs and will taper down every two weeks. I cannot tell you how glad I will be to get off of the prednisone before I balloon up so bad I explode. I have an appointment with her this coming week. I hope and pray that this is finally gone for good and that I experience no reoccurence.

I have an appointment with my rheumy in two weeks and have been given the go ahead to start new RA meds--just no TNFs (and I am not going to take any more Methotrexate either since I am still afraid it was part of the problem). Going without RA meds for so long while I recovered from the allergic reaction has caused some major RA pain and range of motion issues for me and I am grateful that I can now get back on some meds.

I don't mean to bore all of you with this but I wanted to add all this to the discussions in case someone else experiences a similar reaction and is looking for some answers. Of course, I also want to thank you all for your support. It has been a blessing to me.

And finally, all praise and thanks to my Heavenly Father for seeing me through this past six months. He has been with me every step of the way.

//Frances