>>hi gang,
>>
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
>other biologics except remicade, but my Rd thinks it is the most
>effective of all three. I wish you good luck in whatever you decide.
Odd, because the head-to-head study I saw, the most common reason for
quiting Remicade was "didn't work." The most common reason for quitting
Humira was "severe infections." Most common reason for quitting Enbrel
was "slow fadeout." Humira does seem to have the highest infection risk
of the three, which would argue that it's also got the most immunosupressant
action. However, it may also depend on what dose you're taking. Some people
aren't maintained well on the every-other-week dosage schedule, even with
MTX. My RD and I are still fine-tuning my dose. Right now we're trying
every 10 days, which seems to be working pretty well. Since I've had
problems with infections before, what we don't want is to bump the dose
too high. If this doesn't work, we'll go to once a week, but so far
every 10 days seems to be doing the job.
Enbrel never _quite_ worked for me, and I didn't get to try Remicade
because I failed both MTX and Arava (whee, watch those liver panel scores
shoot through the ceiling!). Humira, even on the ever-other-week dosage
worked much better. At the current dose, I'm actually finally gaining back
lost ground. Last week, I dropped something in the shower and actually
managed to pick it up with my toes. I haven't been able to do that in over
a year because my toes have been too clawed up. And I've been able to
stand and walk around a lot more. And push my wheelchair by myself for
longer stretches. So for me at least, the Humira is the first drug we've
tried in almost 3 years that's actually _worked_.

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Lee M.Thompson-Herbert lee@retro.com KoX 1995, SP4
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DCHAM - 22 Dec 2004 04:21 GMT
thanks, lee. that's encouraging. except about the infections. =:-0
diane