Methotrexate side effects - when do they kick in

[andrew]

begin whine

Hey all I'm having an awesome day. Snapped a rib again this morning (feels like the same one as last time) from coughing and now getting stomach cramps and the runs either from the chicken I had for lunch or from the Meth.

Tell me something: when do Methotrexate side effects usually kick in? This week was the third week stepping up to 2 x 10mg tablets which I took approximately 24 hours ago. I'm taking Folic Acid 1 x 0.5mg on the off days.

I'm thinking it's the chicken as side effects would surely have kicked in earlier?? Also I'm getting chills with the nausea and cramps which also makes me think it's the $^@#&@ chicken.

end whine

[Jack]

Snapped a rib again this morning (feels like the same one as last time) from coughing and now getting stomach cramps and the runs

Me too! (I did my rib last night by leaning over the arm of the chair)
Bloody good fun this isn't it?

Hope you feel well soon. Avoid smelly chicken!

[DEE]

Andrew when i was taking mtx i felt sick on the day i took it for about a month .
the only other thing i found was i was tired for a couple or days after taking it
other than that only change from it because it was not holding wg down
good luck maybe have to change menu
eat muffins like Elephant and i
take care DEEx

[andrew]

Haha yeah muffins sound like a good idea. Thanks for the tip on the side effects.

Jack: Yes, it's about as fun as underwear made from sandpaper. <- Just thought of that myself. An Andrew original.

The chicken was a bbq chicken from the local store of which I at some yesterday with no ill effects. Seems it had a limited shelf life!

[Jaha]

Andrew,

I take mtx by shots (to avoid the nausea), every week, folic acid daily,bactrium MWF. I have side effects for the 2 days following the shots, bone pain,fatigue, muscle weakness, headaches and generally feel like crap. Then about the third day I pop back to semi normal. Think that the mtx kind of builds up in your system and can create more side effects the longer you are on it. I just know how I react to it and everybody is propably a different.

Jana

[andrew]

Thanks Jaha. How much Meth are you on?

[Jaha]

Andrew,

I am on .6ml shots and I think that is a very low dose, have been on it since I was comfirmed WG in Sept. I am just excepting and learning about WG, mostly from this forum. It's been a bumpy road already.
Jana

[Jack]

Snapped a rib again this morning (feels like the same one as last time) from coughing

How is the rib Andrew? It is the third day for me and that always seems to be the worst. Rib pain seems to behave very oddly with me - it hardly hurts at all at first then gets worse for a few days before starting to slowly improve. However, still get some episodes of pain weeks later and it takes a very long time to clear up completely.

[JanW]

I was stopping in to say the same thing that Sangye says, vdub. I too take mtx, and can tell you that even when I was on the tester dose, and was told that I could drink moderately, my liver enzymes spiked enough that the doctor took me off of of the drug and thought I might never be able to tolerate it. I was nervous about this naturally, because he said that imuran or cellcept would likely have more severe side effects, and I didn't need the big guns of rtx or ctx. The thing about WG is that, in addition to not wanting to mess up your organs, you don't want to have rule out drugs you may need to have in your arsenal at some point because this is a tricky disease.

By moderate I meant that I would probably have 5-6 drinks on a weekend, and never drank around my dose day (which was Wednesday at that time). I have cut that back to 1-2 drinks per week, and never had a problem since.

He was taking my bloods biweekly at the point, and noticed the different within 2 weeks, at a 10 mg dose.

It's far from certain that WG will shorten any of our lives. Has more to do with the severity of the disease and it's treatment.

[andrew]

I saw the lung specialist dude yesterday who actually turned out to be the Registrar but even with his training wheels on he knew a LOT about WG. We had a good discussion about the disease. He saw me for nearly an hour.

He is of the opinion that the persistent cough is the result of sleep apnea and the crap I'm coughing up is the result of a virus not an infection because I don't have a fever. He also noticed a spot on my left lung (from a recent x-ray) which was there when I saw his colleague back in 2003 according to my file. He needed a copy of that x-ray (which I've probably got in the garage somewhere) to determine if there have been any changes over that time. He sent me to x-ray to get a comparison picture as well as they have images from July and early November.

Sidenote: X-ray rooms are awesome now, they're all digital. No film no muck with, just point and click and the image gets sent to the requesting quack. Wasn't there at the beginning of November when I had my last one. Certainly wasn't there when I was 16 doing work experience in the hospital radiology dept. That was super fun! End sidenote.

He listened to my chest for a long time. He picked up my leaking Aorta valve as well. Damn, I was doing my best to hide that hahaha. I couldn't do the lung function test due to my cracked rib so I'm booked in again for February.

I'm also going for a chest CT, a sleep study and will see a dietitian. Will also have blood tests just before the next appointment in Feb and a sputum test if I can remember to get a jar from the hospital and am able to hoik up enough to get a decent sample.

He asked a lot of questions which I though was great. He apologised for taking a long time to read my file. I told him I had all day and he could take his time.

Oh, he also gave me a nasal spray to assist with breathing overnight and hopefully then also with the coughing??.

Once he was done he called in the Specialist, who also was a WG encyclopedia, to confirm all he had done. Specialist gave it the big tick of approval and I could finally go to the loo.

Thanks to my Mum who took me and waited half the day for me to be done