did you relasp coming off of mex? withdrawl?

[Justdave]

Hello all,
    I am on Humira, Mexatrexate and Prednisone.  We are trying to see if we can drop the mex since the humira seems to be doing the lions share. Give my liver a break, if that doesn't work, we are going to try to replace the Mex with something else, because I can't seem to get below 15mg pred with that combo without flairing.

    I stoped the mex, thought cool, one less med and all seemed fine.  For a few days, I am on about ten days without it now, and wham...

    I am hurting, My eyes are on fire, I am getting sores in my mouth from the dryness, tremors are back and I am so tired I have a hard time standing for too long. Yikes..

     my arms and leg muscles keep cramping and the joints in my fingers are stiffening up and oh yeah, there is the fevor.

     Either Mex has withdrawl symptoms and you can't go cold turkey, or this isn't such a wise idea.  Maybe I need to add one before tapering the other.

     Not sure.  This evening it got real bad, that I took the emergency rip cord and took another ten mg of pred. It is calming down a bit, but that isn't a fix. My wife wants me to call the doc, it's the weekend, he is a great guy, I don't want to be a pain in the rump patient.  but ouch.

     I could just take an extra ten till monday and we sort it out. I am all out of mex, so I can't start up again and no refills.  Or I could just let the flair go where it will, and storm it out. it has to stop sometime, right.  I never got sores on my tougne before from dryness, thats new. 

    hmmm tough call, my wife and son are worried, they say I look like a truck ran over me.  I think it did. LOL

     

[SeaBreeze2]

Hi Dave,
Sounds very uncomfortable. I have never been on mex, so I can't really help with that part of the question.
But........ In my opinion I don't think we should ever disregard a fever... the cramping can be from a lot of things, but it could be dehydration ... especially with the leg cramps... low potassium ? I hope you get some relief soon. It might be time to give the doctor a call... Good luck...

[eyeamdry]

Dave, I've been on MTX (along with others-no pred though) for about 4 years, since my diagnosis for SJS.  I just went through a period of time where I ran out of MTX (knew I would) and didn't have any for 3 or 4 weeks.  I didn't even think of having "withdrawal" from not having it.   I did not have any withdrawal though even after that long.  I also don't know if I began to feel the effects (pain) of being off MTX for a bit.  I started it back up as soon as I got it in the mail.  I started at my regular dosage. 

I thought the comment about me not having withdrawal might help you as to how others react. Lucy

[irish]

Dave, You are having a flare I think. The mex was suppressing your autoimmune responses more than you thought. The med is out of your body and your body has now reved up into overdrive. I hope that you doc can get you on another med ASAP or else you are going to end up on high dose of prednisone until you get the new med up and running. You don't get withdrawal from this type of drugs. I was on mex and stopped it cold turkey with no problem.

Withdrawal refers to a physical reaction that occurs when a drug such as a tranquilizer or morphine is stopped cold turkey. Withdrawal is cramps, chills, nausea, vomiting, seizures, etc.

People who take Plaquenil have had this type of thing happen to them when they quit the drug. They think it isn't doing anything for their autoimmune and after they quit the drug all the autoimmune stuff explodes letting them know that indeed, the plaquenil was working. Hope you can get some relief soon. Irish