Health Boards
Sat-09-04-2016, 11:17 AM
Well latest update as it has been a slightly interesting couple of weeks.
I mentioned a cough! Well after flying back from holiday it manifested itself as a proper chest infection so off I went to the doctors.
Now my GP had advised that if I get anything that I felt was infectious to stop MTX. When being triaged by the walkin surgery the nurse said I should not stop taking any medication unless advised pecifically by a medical professional. Roll on examination and doctor to prescribe antibiotics to clear said infection and the advice to NOT take MTX until the infection was completely cleared. Well who'd have thought, I mean, how sensible would it be to continue taking an immunosuppressant drug when your need to fight an infection!
Roll on blood test a few days later and scheduled consultant visit where I validated the advice which is "even if I get a cold stop MTX until I feel better".
All of that said I am usually never ill and if I am even when I have had a bad cold or Flu once I am better in 3-5 days and cannot ever remeber finishing a course of antibiotics. WOW this chest infection started with a cough just before my holiday, continued through the holiday. OK swimming in a cold sea may not have been my most sensible idea. Developed to full blown chest infection a few days after getting home. Anyway it has eased today just after finishing my antibiotics so hopefully I will be well enough to resume MTX in a few days along with starting training again, but it will be nearly 3 weeks. I can only put this down to either, getting older, a particularly resilient little bug or MTX.
Anyway the advice in my case will be any infection stop MTX to let your body have a little better chance of fighting it.
Now my consultant visit, I am 95-99% clear which is awesome. do not have 5% psoriasis I am using that as a comparison to how I was. I would say my psoriasis coverage was between 0.1 and 0.5% of my body. Literally a little bit on my bum that looks like red blotches with no scaling and my face gets a little when I don't get enough sleep which is frequent as I work for myself and I am very busy. I will saty on 15mg MTX for the next 2 months as my consultant wants me to get rid of the chest infection and restart MTX as soon as possible and potentially increase the dosage to 20mg in 2 months. However I would say I am more than happy if they decide to leave it at 15mg as I can live with my skin now which was very difficult for the last 40 years.
I mentioned a cough! Well after flying back from holiday it manifested itself as a proper chest infection so off I went to the doctors.
Now my GP had advised that if I get anything that I felt was infectious to stop MTX. When being triaged by the walkin surgery the nurse said I should not stop taking any medication unless advised pecifically by a medical professional. Roll on examination and doctor to prescribe antibiotics to clear said infection and the advice to NOT take MTX until the infection was completely cleared. Well who'd have thought, I mean, how sensible would it be to continue taking an immunosuppressant drug when your need to fight an infection!
Roll on blood test a few days later and scheduled consultant visit where I validated the advice which is "even if I get a cold stop MTX until I feel better".
All of that said I am usually never ill and if I am even when I have had a bad cold or Flu once I am better in 3-5 days and cannot ever remeber finishing a course of antibiotics. WOW this chest infection started with a cough just before my holiday, continued through the holiday. OK swimming in a cold sea may not have been my most sensible idea. Developed to full blown chest infection a few days after getting home. Anyway it has eased today just after finishing my antibiotics so hopefully I will be well enough to resume MTX in a few days along with starting training again, but it will be nearly 3 weeks. I can only put this down to either, getting older, a particularly resilient little bug or MTX.
Anyway the advice in my case will be any infection stop MTX to let your body have a little better chance of fighting it.
Now my consultant visit, I am 95-99% clear which is awesome. do not have 5% psoriasis I am using that as a comparison to how I was. I would say my psoriasis coverage was between 0.1 and 0.5% of my body. Literally a little bit on my bum that looks like red blotches with no scaling and my face gets a little when I don't get enough sleep which is frequent as I work for myself and I am very busy. I will saty on 15mg MTX for the next 2 months as my consultant wants me to get rid of the chest infection and restart MTX as soon as possible and potentially increase the dosage to 20mg in 2 months. However I would say I am more than happy if they decide to leave it at 15mg as I can live with my skin now which was very difficult for the last 40 years.