Is anyone here on 100 mg of Enbrel per week (i.e. 2 50 mg injections per week)? My husband has been on 50 mg per week for about 12 weeks and has had some benefit but his pain and stiffness gets worse again 3 days after each injection. His rheumatologist has prescribed doubling his dose to 100 mg per week but it is taking forever for our insurance (private insurance in the US) to approve the increase.
Is anyone else in the group on the 100 mg dose? Particularly interested in hearing from people in the US who have had to deal with insurers, as I’m wondering if there’s anything more I can be doing to help this process go faster (we’ve been waiting around 4 weeks now).
Thanks so much! I really appreciate this group; it has been so helpful to my husband.
That’s typically done for psoriasis, when first starting on Enbrel. Because it’s not used twice a week for psoriatic arthritis or later in psoriasis, you might have a hard time getting it approved by your insurance.
Hi, Nco. Yep, in the US you can get the 2 x 50mg dose per week, but, like Stoney said, it’s when a dermatologist prescribes it. I had pretty bad psoriasis along with my REALLY bad arthritis. I could’ve got the order for Enbrel from my rheumy, but my daughter worked for a dermatologist and she convinced me to go on Enbrel and right away got me the 2 injections a week for the first 3 months.
IDK if it’s possible, but if he has/had bad psoriasis, maybe a dermatologist could convince the insurance provider to cover the extra injection. I know it wouldn’t be easy, but maybe it’s not impossible.
I can’t, for the life of me, understand the reasoning behind their willingness to cover psoriasis with a stronger dose over psoriatic arthritis. Someone needs to convince the insurers that the arthritis is usually so much worse than the skin disease!!