12 Week Trial Blues

General Medications
1

I have my next appointment with my Rheumatologist on 14th August and from what I remember from my last appointment, a review of my medications will take place and if my body ticks all the right box's, I will remain on Humira. During this assessment I feel I need to convince the Rheumy that my body is responding sufficiently for me to remain on Humira. I might not be thinking clearly at the moment, but I am concerned that if I am truthful in outlining my current symptoms, I will not pass the assessment.

My concern is this; if I state that both of my hands, arms, shoulders and my right ankle have swelled and given me pain over the past 2 weeks, will they think the Humira is not working? or would they think the MTX is not working? or will they put it down to the NSAIDS not working?

I do not wish to change Biologics, as I feel the Humira has lessened my PSA pain and I do not want to go back to "the gap" period again as I was in it for 5 years and I still haven't forgotten what it was like even though I have only just started to get relief.

I'm not sure which way to go with this one. Thoughts please?

2

Trust that your rheumatologist will do the right thing and I would tell them straight up that you are satisfied with the humira.

3

There isn't a pass/fail criteria for hardly any medication except maybe antibiotics and insulin. You will have pain and swelling from time to time no matter what combo of meds you are on.................. What WILL happen is a discussion. Its more likley your MTX will be tweaked and/or NSAID changed.

4

KeysPlease, I went through my twelve week review (on Simponi) at the beginning of June and had alot of the same worries as you raise. What I did was concentrate on where I had noticed improvement so that although I was still getting some pain and swelling I could tell them very clearly what was feeling better, even if it wasn't yet 100% of the time. I included things like better sleep, less morning stiffness, clearing of my brain fog and also specific things that I was finding I could do again that had been difficult/impossible before. Hope your appointment goes well.