Next week I will have finished 5 months of Taltz. It has worked about 85% on psoriasis and maybe 50% on enthesitis/joint pain. It’s hard to measure effectiveness unless I go off of it completely and then I would know if it is helping the PsA issues. For now, unless I stay on Celebrex, my daily function is limited by pain and stiffness. And of course it all ramps up at night so I flop around like a fish trying to find a position that is pain neutral. I can’t say that I am any better today than after a year and a half on Rinvoq…nothing seems to hit the bullseye but I don’t see the speedy rheumy until January.
I have been one who rarely gets a surface or skin infection. My farm work and mechanical work always causes minor cuts and scrapes and I just wash them out and in a matter of days they are well on to being healed. But since Taltz, every little nick or scrape takes weeks to heal and I have to use antibiotic creams and watch them very closely. Is this my imagination or could Taltz be the problem?
Talz could very well be slowing healing.
I accidentally threw a concrete birdbath at my lower leg in mid June. It caused an almighty bruise which grew a haematoma which then burst. And then the site of of the haematoma basically ulcerated. I’ve been seeing my GP nurses for bandage changes twice a week since the very beginning of July. I had my last dose of Cosentyx (sister med to Talz) at the very beginning of August.
As I’m now changing to Tremfya after such a good run on Cosentyx which sadly was losing its effectiveness throwing me horrible short but persistant flares for about a year.
Anyway as Cosentyx lasts such a long time in your body, it’s only since the beginning of Sept that my stupid leg wound has started to coherently heal. Now down to once a week bandage changes. And it’s looking better each week.
Just incidentally I doubt many meds hit any bulleye really, and I’ve never been without a daily NSAID with any of them! But for sure Cosentyx certainly helped enormously with function when it got going which @Amos wasn’t until the end of month 8. You’re only at month 5, so you really need to give it a year. Talz and indeed Cosentyx tend to work more sustainably for many many patients from month 6 after starting it. For some patients they have to wait until even month 12. The first coherent review date for Talz is 16 weeks after starting it, and thats for the tiniest of improvements and you’re only just beyond that. So patience man, patience!
The one I’ll be starting in mid to end November - Tremfya has its first review at 24 weeks so just shy of 6 months. And it doesn’t reach full efficacy until two years. You’ve just got to plod the waiting really.
Thanks @Poo_therapy, that was very helpful. I’m ok with waiting, as long as it isn’t for more than a day. Ha! Really, I’d rather wait out a med than miss out a slow result. I guess I was looking too much at the reports on the other extreme that some found Taltz effective after two doses. Thankfully it has helped the psoriasis but not completely. It’s like having mild poison ivy on your eye lids and into the corner blocking the tear duct. Protopic ointment helps but makes my face red and sun sensitive. Your reply is a good reminder to hang in and stop expecting to wake up “healed”. From dmards to all biologics, I tend to react slowly. The rheumy suggested I go back on Sulfasalazine again but we didn’t get along. So Celebrex is it for now.
The good news is that it sounds like you’re not more prone to infection necessarily, just not as fast to heal.
Hopefully you’ll continue to get improvements
@Poo_therapy, holy cow. That sounds miserable
Blocked tear ducts? PsA loves affecting eyes and indeed causing dry eyes especially. Has your optician looked at your eyes recently?
You’re not alone in not reacting quickly to meds. I don’t either. I’m still learning patience althought I preach it a lot! 
It was interesting. Once the bruise healed up it hasn’t been painful thankfully. It’s just a complete pain in the proverbial to keep having to shower in a plastic boot bag thingy. And I’m now best friends with all my GP nurses too, so we have a laugh! And they get lots of chocolate!