MTX vs Ritux.

[maria garcia]

HI guys its Maria the mother of Christina, my 18 year old with MPA. I was very involved in the forum about 6 months ago. I also want to say Im heart broken with the news about Al. He always had wise answers and kindness. It was like havinga a wegs dictionary on the forum.He would private message me with answers to calm a nervous mother. I even told him I wanted to adopt him as my father because he was always there to calm me down and feel better he helped me through me deppresion. He would never be forgotten in my heart.

I have a question for you: My daughter has been taking MTX 25mg and Prednisone tapered to 5 mg and she is doing great no more red eyes. Well today we went to see a new Rheumy now that she turned 18. Well this doctor 100% recommended rituxan(not sure the spelling its been around about 1 year for wegs) Well he said MTX is a very toxic drug to be used for a long period. He said that bcse she is so young it would be to toxin for her future. He also said it would be very hard to go on remission and be able to stop the med. MTX. He suggested Rituxan. He said this med would put her in remission in 2 months and no more prednisone or any meds until symptoms would come back he said usually 6 months. He said if it was his daughter Rituxan would be the way he would go. He made MTX sound like a lethal drug that would never put her on remission. She has been doing very well on it all her blood panels have been perfect and no more symptoms. PLEASE HELP ME>

[lupita]

i did my first round of rituxin in feb and it went great for me. didnt give me any kind of side effects at all. now im taking 2.5 of prednisone, which i feel great. next month i need to decide if i want to do another round of rituxin or do mtx... which i did see had alot of side effects. im 24 yrs old and i want the least amount of side effects possible :/ u know.

dont know if this helped but hope ur daughter is fine.
cuidate mucho

[Sangye]

1) Mtx is not extremely toxic (at least not from a medical point of view). People stay on it for many years. The main problem is the risk of cancer increasing when you remain on immunosuppressants. That's true for any of the drugs we take.

2) Mtx can certainly help her get into remission if used appropriately. The fact that her eyes have cleared up is a sign that mtx is working well. Does she still have other symptoms of Wegs?

3) Rtx (rituxan) is a great drug, but it is MUCH more powerful than mtx and should only be used if milder drugs like mtx, imuran or cellcept don't work.

4) There is no guarantee that rtx will put her into remission and keep her there. Every drug is trial and error.

My question is: Isn't she already in remission? If she has no symptoms and her labs look great, that is remission.

[pberggren1]

I have to agree with Sangye 100%. If she is in remission then there is no need to try rtx right now. Stick with mtx for a while then taper if things are good for a while.

[Sangye]

I wasn't making a recommendation about which drugs she should take, just stating some facts about what the doctor said.

[maria garcia]

HI guys its Maria the mother of Christina, my 18 year old with MPA. I was very involved in the forum about 6 months ago. I also want to say Im heart broken with the news about Al. He always had wise answers and kindness. It was like havinga a wegs dictionary on the forum.He would private message me with answers to calm a nervous mother. I even told him I wanted to adopt him as my father because he was always there to calm me down and feel better he helped me through me deppresion. He would never be forgotten in my heart.

I have a question for you: My daughter has been taking MTX 25mg and Prednisone tapered to 5 mg and she is doing great no more red eyes. Well today we went to see a new Rheumy now that she turned 18. Well this doctor 100% recommended rituxan(not sure the spelling its been around about 1 year for wegs) Well he said MTX is a very toxic drug to be used for a long period. He said that bcse she is so young it would be to toxin for her future. He also said it would be very hard to go on remission and be able to stop the med. MTX. He suggested Rituxan. He said this med would put her in remission in 2 months and no more prednisone or any meds until symptoms would come back he said usually 6 months. He said if it was his daughter Rituxan would be the way he would go. He made MTX sound like a lethal drug that would never put her on remission. She has been doing very well on it all her blood panels have been perfect and no more symptoms. PLEASE HELP ME>

Sangye yes she has no other symptom at the moment so it looks like she is on indused medication remission. The doctor said she would never be able to come of the meds and go on remission without the meds.

[maria garcia]

Yes phil I think thats what we are planning on doing. Tomm. She goes to her regular doctor and we will discuss.

[Sangye]

The doctor said she would never be able to come of the meds and go on remission without the meds.
How can he make a statement like that? Many people can maintain remission without meds. My Wegs specialist-- Dr Seo-- feels that every Weggie should be given the chance to try life without Wegs drugs once they're in solid remission. I'm not saying Christina is ready for that right now, but after she's been in remission for a bit they should definitely consider stopping the drugs to see how she does.

[mishb]

How can he make a statement like that? Many people can maintain remission without meds. My Wegs specialist-- Dr Seo-- feels that every Weggie should be given the chance to try life without Wegs drugs once they're in solid remission. I'm not saying Christina is ready for that right now, but after she's been in remission for a bit they should definitely consider stopping the drugs to see how she does.

When they thought I had a form a leukemia, last year, the Haematologist told me that I would never come off MTX and that I would probably be maintained on a mimimum dosage.
My rheumy also told me that this is probably still the case.......but who knows down the track, she said we will work on reducing the pred first

[drz]

I think my plan is reverse, try to reduce the azathioprine immunosuppressant first and see how that goes, and then try taper off the pred meds if possible. I wonder how most people are tapered off their meds when they try go med free?

[Dirty Don]

Rheumy has me tapering pred first...then we'll see about mtx. Don't know the protocol, but I want off pred anyway, screws up my golf game!

[Pete]

Any excuse for a screwed up golf game, eh Don???

Pete

[Dirty Don]

Hey, hey, hey....that's MY excuse and I'm sticking to it!! LOL! Seriously, focusing, particularly on short irons is difficult...didn't used to be...hmmmm. Oh, and if you're interested Pete, this being my one year anniversary of the big crash (17 days in: 10 in ICU unconscious!), I bought myself a brand new Bettinardi putter...won't make me any better, but I like shiny things!! LOL! Swing well!

Don

[Pete]

At least you're able to buy and enjoy shiny things! Have fun!

Pete