Lupus And RA Deficit, And Finding A Treatment That Works

Lately, I’m starting at a deficit.  I don’t wake up feeling energized and refreshed, even when I sleep for 10 or 12 hours. 

My boyfriend has made the point that I’m not a morning person.

That hasn’t always been the case.

I used to be a morning person, a late night person, pretty much an any-time-of-day person.  That was before I got sick. 

Now, when I wake up stiff and in pain, and it takes me time to get going, it’s my arthritis that’s talking, not my personality.

When I was in the midst of the latest flare I had, I wished that I could just go to sleep and wake up when the flare was over.

But there’s so much I would miss.

And the thought of sleeping my life away is scary and depressing.

Sometimes you do have to drag yourself out of bed and will yourself to face the day.  I get that.  And sometimes you feel better after you do, but sometimes that’s just totally impossible.

My flare seems to have abated, which means that it looks like Humira caused my lupus to flare.  Which means that I am off Humira for good, and it’s back to the drawing board.

We knew from the beginning that one of the side-effects of Humira is a lupus-like syndrome.  This worried me from the start, since I already have lupus.  And we should have worried, because that’s exactly what it did to me.

I ran into my rheumatologist the other day.  I had been meaning to e-mail him, but hadn’t got around to it.  He suggested that for sure we go back to low-dose daily Prednisone. 

He also suggested adding Tacrolimus to my treatment regimen.  I did some looking around.  Most of the articles about Tacrolimus and RA, and the few on lupus, are all relatively recent, within the last three years.

I’m not convinced.  This drug started out as an anti-organ rejection drug – like CellCept, which I was on several years ago – has been used to treat colitis, and is now being used for people with RA.  The safety and efficacy, from what I read on PubMed, is mixed. 

I wish this was an easy decision, an open-and-shut case.  But it’s not.  The way I’m feeling right now, I could live with this.  On the other hand, I get tired a lot more easily than before; I get winded from walking up three flights of stairs to my apartment.  There are subtle changes I see that don’t make me happy.  I’m not back to where I was pre-Humira or pre-Humira-induced lupus flare.  And that’s frustrating.  It’s also getting colder, and the winter always does a number on my joint pain and mobility. 

This is really the first time that I’ve had a lot of questions after reading about a treatment.  Because while we can’t plan for the things we don’t know about yet, we can plan, and should be vigilant about, the things we do. 

I worry that my chronically elevated liver enzymes, which my PCP recently postulated may be autoimmune hepatitis, my ongoing gyno issues, and the fact that I would like to have a child someday, are all making me reason against Tacrolimus.

I feel like before I start TAC, I need to see a liver specialist, talk to my PCP about my gyno issues, and see if I can meet with a high-risk obstetrician or genetic counselor to talk about what we would be looking at if I begin TAC sometime in the next few months. 

As much as I appreciate my rheumatologist for all that he does for me, he hasn’t been very good at approaching the “How will this impact my future fertility?” question.  He seems to think we should only factor it in when it isn’t hypothetical anymore.  But it’s not.  It’s not a question of if, but when.  And it is also something that I really care about. 

Maybe it would be different if the situation was “take this or you die,” but that’s not the case right now.  And I hope it never is.

Is it bad that the thought of daily Prednisone gives me nightmares?  I’ve always said that I wouldn’t let fear get in the way of my treatment. 

So I’ll say it again.  I’m torn.  Go back to the drawing board and experiment with a new med or tough it out for the next few months and see if I can make it on my own? 

I could tell by the look on my rheum’s face that he has doubts, too.  And that concerns me more than anything else.

I’ve realized lately that I have to pick my battles and commitments.  I can’t do everything.

There are some really promising things happening in my life right now, and while I would love to focus on the good, I am filled with anxiety about the future.  I wish there was a clear-cut answer here.  I wish I knew which decision to make that would be the most efficacious. 

On the one hand, I won’t know if I don’t try.  On the other hand, though, what if I am putting myself at risk for worse things than what I am facing right now? 

And I appreciate so much that my mom is doing some of her own research on TAC, and that my boyfriend says that he will support whatever decision I make.  My health has to come first, but in this case I don’t really know if that means starting TAC or not, especially someone who can’t be on Methotrexate, like me, and cannot be on a biologic, either.

If anyone has heard about Tacrolimus, or on the off chance that you’ve taken it, please, please, please comment or e-mail me.  I would love to hear from someone who has been on it successfully for RA.