RA Update

Well, we tried Humira for four months and it didn't work any better than the Enbrel did (i.e. mainly not at all). Last night was absolutely the most painful night I've ever passed to date. I mean, indescribably paintacular. Never mind getting up and walking; moving at all was a festival of pain. Fortunately, I had a follow-up appointment with my rheumatologist this morning.

He took one look at my grapefruit-sized right knee, swollen hands and wrists, and extremely tender feet and shoulders and decided that we are going to give up on the Humira and switch to Orencia. The downside is that Orencia is available only by IV infusion at the doctor's office, so I'll have to go in for an infusion every two weeks at first and then every four weeks. I should get my first infusion the first week of January (we have to wait two weeks after my last Humira injection, which was two days ago).

He also talked me into getting a Kenalog injection this morning. He's been trying to convince me to go on Prednisone for awhile until we find the right biologic for my RA, but I keep refusing because I don't like the side effects of corticosteroids. He assured me this morning that an injection would minimize any side effects, and I was in so much pain that I finally caved in. Allegedly this will have me feeling much better in a day or two. Although if I'm supposed to be noticing any difference by now, it's not working. My knee still looks like a grapefruit and my left wrist has blown up like a balloon this evening and is making typing quite difficult and painful.

Anyway, I'm a little bit excited about switching to Orencia because it's an entirely different type of drug, so I'm hopeful it will work. If I could cross my fingers right now, I would.