DMARDs for Arthritis Q & A

I am 32 years old and have had one child a year ago. I recently was diagnosed with seronegative arthritis. I will be starting methotrexate next week. My husband and I would like to have one more child. My rheumatologist suggested going on methotrexate to get my arthritis under control at least for a year then stopping for three months before becoming pregnant again. Is three months long enough? Will my arthritis be more difficult to manage the second time I go on methotrexate?

I was on Enbrel for about a year and a half. Soon after beginning the medicine, I began to have difficulty with my speech, mainly with talking in past tense. When trying to explain something, I would suddenly be unable to speak for about 15-20 seconds. This got progressively worse as time went on. My doctor sent me to a neurologist who thought that the speech episodes were small seizures. I had a MRI and EEG done and both were normal. Then I have a partial complex seizure, which trun into a generalized seizure, and another partial complex seizure about 2 months after that one. Since then I have stopped taking the Enbrel, and am on antiseizure meds, but still have small seizures with garbled speech, and diffuculty talking in and hearing past tense words. I feel this has been caused by the Enbrel, and would like to know if there have been other people who have suffered seizure disorders due to TNF inhibitors.

I am a 50 yr. old WM, who has chronic lumbosacral radiculopathy from failed BAK cage assisted fusion surgery in 1998.High dose opioid/NSAID therapy is absolutely essential, but I feel that the anti-inflammatory meds are the most beneficial. I have seen some recently published case abstracts where TNF blocking agents like Humira/Remicade were successful in treating sciatica/lbp resulting from herniated lumbar discs. I have a consultation scheduled with Dr. Ziya Gokaslan on 3/28. If it is decided I am not a surgical candidate, would a short trial course of a TNF blocking (Humira/Remicade) class drug be available? Aside from TB and infections, what other risk issues should be considered? I want to thank you for generously dispensing your expertise in this forum.

If you had a patient on Tamoxifen to prevent a recurrance of breast cancer would you be concerned about the patient also taking low doses of Methotrexate for RA- in regard to liver function?

My 7-yr old son is on 17.5mg MTX sub-cut injections once a week. He has been inflammation free for 6 months. There seems to be a differing opinions among some of my doctors, whether my son should be inflammation free for 6 months or 2 years before tapering the MTX.

I take arava and methatrexate for RA and muscle disease. I’ve been on these medications and then some for one year. My blood tests have been coming back okay since yesterday now my blood tests came back with extremely high numbers on my liver. My doctor took me off methatrexate and i go back in three weeks for more blood work. What will happen now if my numbers don’t lower is there other medications i could take that will help me like the methatrexate and arava does?