When Health Is The Focus Again

It’s been a while. Mainly because my health hasn’t been the center of everything. It’s so easy to write when things aren’t going well. It’s harder to write when they are.

In the last two years, I bought a house and got married. And of course, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis have been there and figured in. We bought a ranch because I didn’t want to be forced to navigate stairs if my health declines. A lot of what went in to planning our wedding was done with chronic illness in mind. But even so, those events were at the center.

Now, due to circumstances beyond my control, my health is front and center again. Several months ago, I found out that Quinacrine was no longer available – more about that in another post. As a result of this, my rheumatologist suggested that I go back on Plaquenil. I had been on it before, with my previous rheumatologist, with little success. I told my current doctor that, and he wasn’t convinced. Even when I told him that I had been taken off of it due to elevated liver enzymes, he told me that was incredibly rare with Plaquenil.

So I played the game. I started taking Plaquenil again, just to prove a point. And prove a point, I did. Pretty much every side effect that comes with Plaquenil, I had. I had headaches, extreme nausea, and severe itching. I switched to taking the medication at night instead of the morning and that helped with the headaches and nausea, but I continued to have extreme itching all over my body.    

When I told my doctor my symptoms, he told me that I must have an intolerance to Plaquenil and that I should stop taking it. He didn’t offer any other options. Well, other than telling me that I could make a killing if I could find a way to manufacture Quinacrine myself.

And with this situation, I feel like nothing has changed in the 12 years that I have been sick. Because of my “overlap syndrome” of lupus and RA, many treatments aren’t an option for me. Methotrexate didn’t work and caused elevated liver enzymes and low white blood cell count. Cellcept and Tacrolimus were no good either, for various reasons. Humira caused me to go into the worst lupus flare I’ve ever experienced and so that means that typical biologics for RA are basically off the table for me.

So for now, I’m on Imuran and that’s basically it, at least until I want to get pregnant. And then the jury is out because my rheumatologist and gynecologist disagree on whether I can remain on Imuran during pregnancy. More than likely, I’ll have to give it up, too.

And then where will I be? The ultimate test. How will I be on nothing at all? Will I be able to function?

It’s beyond frustrating.

And right now, I don’t feel great. My labs don’t look great. It all feels like a crapshoot. There are no clear answers or easy decisions. There’s just better or worse.

My old rheumatologist used to measure progress based on whether I was having more good days than bad days. For most of the time I saw him, I was having more bad days than good. But things got better. And I’ve maintained that. Going off of Quinacrine and back on Plaquenil changed things. Suddenly, I was having more bad days than good.

So for now, I wait. Wait for solutions and treatments that don’t exist, wait until the answers become clear to me.