Thank you, Valentine, Deb, Lainey and Dave for your encouragement.

It sure is nice to have friends at your back.

 

I wondered about that too. You need to undress, I mean unstress yourself. Good luck on turning things around.

 

^ Well, I'm on the right track, then. I'm sitting here naked on my black leather office chair. I mean, I'm getting ready to go to the gym to work off stress.

 

I started Enbrel injections today. I'll give myself a shot once a week. My doctor says it will work wonderfully. I sure hope so. It may take four weeks to really kick in.

I'm amazed at the price of the medicine. I paid just $35 with my Kaiser Permanente health care but the price it costs is listed as $1,415.85 for the four prefilled syringes!

 

Patty,

Hope the Enbrel helps you. One of my friends uses that medication and it helps both his psoriasis and his arthritis.

I've been using Remicade myself for 4 years. It is expensive ($2400 per treatment) but it is the only thing that truly works. I can get by with one Remicade infusion every 10 weeks. Because it is administered at my doctor's office, it is covered by my medical insurance (and with no copay).

I have tried aspirin, gold salts, cortisone, butazolidin, and methotrexate over the years and none of these drugs offers long-term relief.

As you pointed out, stress is definitely a factor in RA flare-ups.

 

^^ Hope it works out, Patty.

 

 

Hope this is the magic bullet, Patty!

 

What in the world have I been missing? Please forgive me Patty for not being up to date on this. You know I would have been right there for ya. Funny, I was just thinking about you last night and thinking I hadn't seen you posting as much when I peeped in to check on the kids.

Sorry to hear about all this but sounds like you're on the right track and knowing you, you'll fight this tooth and nail. You can't keep a good woman down so I'll just pray for pain-free days for you from here on out. We'll have to have a private chat in my room during SF like we did in VA that time. That was so cool. I'll try to stay more up to date, okay. Hang in there my West Coast sista!

 

with respect to the cost, the sad part is far more effort is being placed on treatment than cure nowadays.
You can only cure someone once but you can treat for life.
Which business model do you think the drug makers like better?