Psoriatic arthritis and methotrexate..

[Irishchic]

Does anyone know anything about Psoriatic Arthritis and the drug methotrexate being used to treat it?

My sister has had bad psoriasis for years and now in the last year has developed PSoriatic Arthritis. Consultant wants her to go on Methotrexate. I know this is a pretty strong drug with poss side effect being liver damage.

Is it effective for this disease though and does anyone have experience of taking this drug for this condition?

yep, my mil takes it.
she takes one pill a week. following day she feels very very rough and sleeps allot.

has blood tests every couple of months and is now on the lowest dose you can get.

she is 99% better in every way by bieng on this. she is able to function and her skin is clear with the odd small patch on her leg. prior to starting the drug she had it really really bad and had to go to get her hands and feet treated every day. was in hospital with it for 8 weeks,was a mess.

i am sure she would recommend it.

sorry, blood tests are to check liver function, hers are always absolutely ine..she has been on methotrexate for 15 years now.

also had a liver biopsy a few years ago, that too was fine...they keep a very close eye on your liver.

The feeling with certain types of PA that it is much better to tackle it aggressively with proper medication rather than let it cause damage for years before you treat it. I don't think consultants are trigger happy with methotrexate, they use it where clinically indicated. It can be very helpful from what I've read.

Thanks for that, will pass it on to my sister, it all sounds positive.

Methotrexate is certainly a very powerful drug - which is why it's closely monitored - but it does work. It's only used for serious and intractable problems and has a proven success record. I think your sister should give it a try.

I have just started it. Do you know what the first side effect was that came up on google?

Death

I can't drink much at all on it because it would kill my liver. I am still trying to wrk out if it's worth it.

ARC have great information leaflets I find.

I haven't had to take this yet but it is often referred to as the "gold standard" despite its fairly drastic potential side effects.

I used to take this for Rheumatoid, before TTC. It was brilliant, brought me such relief (except I had to inject it myself, couldn't have tablets). I needed a higher dose than my liver could tolerate (was monitored well) so they combined a lose dose methotrexate with low doses of other drugs - that also gives me some wiggle room to adjust other drugs up and down a bit based on my blood tests and lifestyle. From my experience they are really good at getting on top of the side effects before I felt anything myself (they reduced the drug when my liver was struggling but still needed to be 10x as bad for any actual damage).