RETURN OF ARTHRITIS (IT'S 2020 AFTER ALL)

Figure I should finally update this blog, it has been a while! Shortly after my last post I had my liver function test (LFT) come back significantly elevated. They had been slightly elevated a time or two over the last few years, but nothing like the spike on this particular test. Unfortunately, this is a somewhat common side effect of the leflunomide. As a result, I had to stop taking it and have everything checked out to make sure it was really the drug causing the increase in LFTs.

So I stopped taking it and braced for the worst. It's been six weeks off the drug now, and the psoriatic arthritis is definitely creeping back in. It took maybe two or three weeks before I started getting definite symptoms and then it has slowly gotten worse ever since. It is still only like 25% of what it was back in the day when I was trying to figure things out, but give it another few months untreated and I'm sure I'd be right back there. It's tempting while you're on the medication to think about stopping it and it just not coming back... but yeah, it's there. Shit isn't going away!

I ended up taking a bunch of tests, including an ultrasound of my liver. They all came back completely normal, which was a relief. You start reading about what else it could be, especially something like autoimmune hepatitis, which would fit my health profile, and you start getting very antsy for those results. Luckily everything came back completely normal, other than the elevated LFTs. So, still just the one chronic illness, thank you very much. The elevated LFTs should creep back down to normal over the next few months. They spike up way quicker than they go down.

As a result of all this, I have to start a new drug. Unfortunately, I've ran through the first line treatments of methotrexate and leflunomide, and the one other drug they use in that class tends to have even worse liver results, so it is onto the next class of drugs, the TNF blockers. So I get to start on the #1 revenue drug in America, Humira! I'm not thrilled with this, but I don't really have a choice other than not treating it and limping around. Without insurance it would cost $96,000 a year. My insurance has negotiated treatment at $60,000 a year. I pay $5 per month. USA #1?

Anyways, I should be starting that some point this week. It's another injectable medication which doesn't bother me, I injected the methotrexate for eight months or whatever it was. I did a bunch of research on it and the nastiest side effects tend to appear in people that do not match my age, disease, or "drug cocktail" profile. So hopefully it'll work and I'll take it without incident. I'll update the blog here once the treatment is rolling and hopefully I can get back to where leflunomide had me... in complete remission.

In regards to running... I am still doing it, but any speed or distance I had built up is completely gone. The silver lining of all this happening in 2020 though is that I don't have a marathon to worry about. If I had to do New York at the beginning of November I'd be completely fucked. As it is, I can stumble four miles and call it a day. Maybe I'll leave the "running with arthritis" post for another day. It is a quite interesting experience.