ATTEMPTING DRUG NUMBER.... I'VE LOST COUNT

Hello beautiful people. How are you? And the kids? Good to hear.

Well, nothing much to report. I want to try to update the blog once a month, but I often fail at that, as you can see. Anyways, two things to discuss, starting (another) new drug and my plans for a marathon this fall.

First, the drug. Simponi, the medication I am currently on, is working alright. If nothing else works and this was as good as it gets, I could live with it. It's not ideal and I appear to flare in the winters, but all told, I can be active and feel like a human most of the time. It is still a far cry from the near complete remission with leflunomide though. Oh leflunomide, you sweet, sweet mistress. You and your liver ripping tendencies.

So, while I have recovered from my winter flare with Simponi and seem to be back to the save level I was able to train for New York at, things could be improved. I went into the doctor in February, feeling like the picture on the right, and agreed to try a new med. We can always fall back on Simponi if we need to. But maybe one of these will really work well! So I've started Consentyx. We'll see how that goes. I have four loading doses (one per week for a month) and then it is a monthly shot like Simponi. Just hoping it doesn't completely fail and send me into horrible summer pain.

I was thinking about how many drugs I've been on and figured I should probably start writing them down before I forget. So here they are, in order: methotrexate tablets, injectable methotrexate, leflunomide, Humira, Simponi, Consentyx. So I guess this is attempt #6 to answer my title question. I'll report back on how well it is working. Cross your fingers for me!

As for this fall, I've decided to do the Portland Marathon again. I failed to get into both Chicago and New York, so I'll just stay close to home. Makes things easy with the lack of travel and time zone change. Assuming I do another marathon in 2023, I'll try for New York and Chicago again. Hopefully I can get into Chicago. I mean, come on. Otherwise, I could also look at other fall marathons. Anyways, that's a long ways off. I'm pretty set and excited for Portland this year.

Unfortunately, I did the math and it looks like I have to start training for Portland the first weekend in June. So, pretty much in two weeks. Yeah. Fear not though, I've been ramping up my run long in preparation. Last weekend I did 7 miles and this weekend I'll do 8. It's really sad how quickly my fitness dropped after NYC. Anyways, incrementing a mile at a time, I'll be ready for 10 miles that first training weekend. And then I'll slowly increase mileage throughout the summer again. Not looking forward to those four hours runs in August. Ugh. I just really, really need to re-regulate my sleep schedule so I can do a group run for at least part of them.