I've never done anything like this before so bear with me :-)
My name is Elaine though i'll prob post under Moog cos i like the anonymity.
A bit of background - i'm a 40 year old nurse from N. Ireland & have had rheumatoid arthritis for approx 3 years now. Am currently taking methotrexate 14mg/week & meloxicam 15mg daily.
I've been keeping a fairly close eye on swine flu since it reared its head way back in April & from what i've read, a lot of people are suggesting that the deaths (at least some of them) are being caused by a cytokine storm where the immune system overreacts to the virus causing the lungs to fill with fluid leading to death.
My questions is this? - would we not therefore be better off with a compromised immune system? My theory being that it wont overreact if it isnt working properly in the first place. Of course i could be completely wrong here but worth thinking about.
Then there is the question of vaccines & tamiflu. Being a nurse i was recommended to have the hep b vaccine which to my eternal regret i did for i'm pretty much convinced that this is what brought on my RA.in the first place. Needless to say, i'm not the biggest fan of vaccines due to that.
We know this swine flu vaccine is being rushed through with no or very little safety trials - lets just say i wont be having one - nurse or no nurse. And some of them will contain adjuvants which are pretty harmful to the body & have been shown to cause crippling arthritis etc in ferrets/mice.
Earlier today i was reading that mtx can increase the side effects of tamiflu & from what i've read they're not too pleasant to start with. (Cant remember where i read that now).
http://www.rheumatology.or
The above link is to the NRAS guidelines for rheumatology patients. Apparently we're supposed to stop our meds if we come into contact with swine flu.
Two probs with this:
1) i would never have known if i hadnt gone looking - how many RA sufferers wont know this?
2) if i were to go off mtx for 1 or 2 weeks, how much of a setback is that going to cause - i have no wish to go back to where i was prior to treatment.
One bit of good news - looks like symptoms of swine flu are less marked for those people taking biologics :) - i will post the relevant link when i come across it again.
What i'm planning to do here is to post any relevant info that migh help answer the above questions. There does not seem to be a definitive answer out there.
That'll do for now - more later :)
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