High dose of Fumaderm

[jiml]

My 76 year old husband has been on Fumaderm since the Summer, building up the dose to 120 x 2 x 3 which is a total dose of 720. In fairness, his psoriasis is now under control. But he does have other serious health issues. He is very anaemic and has just been started on iron pills which do seem to be causing digestion problems. He was put on this high dose late September and I sort of assumed we would get an appointment with the consultant, and providing it was under control, start weaning him down to keep him on the lowest possible dose that would control the condition. (I have no medical knowledge but this is what we do with cats when we are trying to give 'quality of life' with potentially potent drugs if used long term,  such as steroids and metacam)
My question is how dangerous is Fumaderm long term at such a high dose? As anyone else been on this dose long term? He also had a very bad cough and we phoned 111 - our surgery closed for staff training. The doctor phoned him back sent him to A and E saying that the Fumaderm could have caused a drop in the white blood cells and he needed a blood test within 2 hours. He went and 9 hours later was discharged as ok.
He is having blood tests twice monthly.
He has very little appetite and his weight is now 7st 10. He has had a endoscopy which aws clear apart from gastritis and also has had a recent colon scan - waiting results. I do know that the GP is worried about potential internal bleeding but the anaemia started way before the Fumaderm so probably is not connected.
Thanks for reading - still worried that this product is not licensed in the UK and wonder if the trials included people over 65? A lot of trials do not....
Helena

Hi again Helena and thank you for returning, I'm glad you have so I can reassure you that the Fumaderm tablets your husband Eric is on are very safe . The only time I would be worried is if the hospital wasn't monitoring my blood. As long as they are doing that and the levels are all within the normal range I would be happy.
The dose of 720mg a day is normal on the build up phase of Fumaderm, I believe he only started on the initial tablets in August so the build up has been normal, and you then stay on the high dose for a while before, reducing to a maintenance dose ( for me that's 480mg a day less than that and my psoriasis comes back)

I don't think the weight loss can be attributed to Fumaderm ( how I wish it had that effect)  I'm 68 years old and have been on Fumaderm for four years, and hope to stay on it until it stops working. So age shouldn't be a problem.
I wouldn't worry about the drug because it's not licensed in this country, here is a link  to read
Fumaderm leaflet

Cut and paste this link it is an NHS document which may be of interest

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