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Auntie has made such remarkable progress. She sounds better than I have heard her in months. She has been going downhill longer than originally thought. It is unreal how the Methotrexate had devastated her body.

She has been on this drug for many years and its hard telling how many years of life she has lost because of it. She has suffered from RA (rheumatoid arthritis) since she was a kid, so I’m not blaming that on this med. She was also diagnosed with CHF (congestive heart failure), but I don’t know how long ago that happened. She now has CAD (coronary artery disease), which she did have before all of this started.

She is going back to the eye doctor next week to see if her prescription has changed because she says her vision is not as clear now. The double vision is gone, but she got her glasses recently enough to where the meds were affected her vision.
She has been to so many doctors; I don’t know how they did help her sooner. We were at 2 doctors offices the week she ended up in the hospital. One of them was with a PA (physician’s assistant) and the other was with her RA doctor. She is the one who put her on all this medication and should have seen the warning signs. Everything I tried to tell them was ignored. When I expressed my concern on the double vision being caused by one of her RA meds, I was told they can cause blurry vision and that was different than double vision. They were thinking she had a stroke, but after 2 CT scans, they decided she hadn’t had one.

I have been seeing a new commercial for a new RA drug called Simponi. They are saying you take it in conjunction with methotrexate. I can’t believe they are still pushing this drug. It was originally used for cancer patients, but they added RA and psoriasis to its uses.

I will never understand why they can’t find the best solution, for the most amount of problems, with the least amount of medication.

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I saw my aunt today and she looks a lot better. She received the blood and it seems to agree with her. She seems to be in good spirits and was joking around with us.

The doctor told her all of this was caused by methotrexate. She was prescribed that from her rheumatologist and was just takenw off of it on Monday. It is causing her bone marrow to break down and is creating havoc on her immune system.

The intended use of methotrexate sis cancer treatment, but it can be used for rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis. It is not intended for long term use, but she has been on it for years. She had no idea what it was supposed to be used for. The doctor said take it and she did.

I will spend some more time on the mistreatment of the elderly later. Now I am going to try and post some MS, multiple sclerosis, related stuff.

Ok, I know we can all think of a lot of things wrong with our current health care industry. Right now, I would love to kill the whole lot of them. I have been taking care of my aunt for the past 2 months and the way the treat the elderly is appalling. All they seem to do is throw another medication at the problem instead of find the cause.

My aunt is now in the hospital getting ready to have blood transfusion. The main cause they can see so far is one of her medications, methotrexate. We went to the rheumatologist Monday and she took her off of Methotrexate and Plaquenil. Now she has taken a turn for the worse and we're not sure what will happen next.

She fell yesterday and I had to call the ambulance. Her blook pressure was 88/28 and they could barely hear her heart. She is now coughing up blood and her nose keeping bleeding. Her creatin level is 4 and it should be around 1.5. Her hemoglobin is 7 and should be around 12. She said the doctor said the methotrexate is breaking down her bone marrow.

With all the doctors we have been to for her problems, nobody has found an answer. All they want to do is oush the drugs with the biggest kickback. I think at 71 we are going more for quality of life and not quantity. How can these people continue to get away with such behavior?

I am warning anyone now who reads this part of the blog. If I am mad, I may get a little out of hand with my language. I try to keep everything respectful and that is why I am put this caveat post at the beginning of this part of the blog. So please, do not get offended, unless you are who/what I am talking about. The comments I post are my opinions.