I don’t like to think of myself as a forgetful person, but sometimes I am. When it comes to taking medicine, I can usually get into a routine and keep it going without forgetting very often. Of course, this is easier under a couple of conditions: 1) When the medicine is taken daily, 2) When it has few requirements on *when* you can take it (e.g. doesn’t have to be with food, or a certain time of day), and 3) When you have fewer other medications that you have to take. With my recent treatment changes for my RA, I ended up taking more medications than I had in recent months. For one, I upped my naproxen dosage to two times daily. Then in March, my doctor had me add Plaquenil to the mix – which is two pills that I take together once a day. Then there’s the Humira, which is a once per week injection. I’ve also been trying to get back in the habit of taking a daily multivitamin. So – there’s been a little more to keep track of. My problem is, once I break the routine, it often takes me a while to get back into it. Last week, I broke my routine.
Here’s a topic I’ve been able to find precious little about. So, I've decided to do some research since we do want to have kids someday, and it doesn't look like my RA is going anywhere. While research shows that a lot of women experience a decrease of symptoms during pregnancy, there’s no guarantee that will happen and no guarantee that even symptoms at a decreased level will be tolerable. My preference would be to not be on any drugs while I’m pregnant, and that will be my first attempted course of action. But I need a contingency plan. If I can’t be completely off medications, I wanted to know the risks involved with various medications before making a decision on what my contingency treatment plan would entail. I’ve had numerous discussions with my rheumatologist and my primary care physician (and we are all in agreement on what my plan will be at this point), but I wanted to pull together a list so that I could organize my thoughts and make sure I examined all (or at least many) of the options and understood the risks.
I don’t like to think of myself as a forgetful person, but sometimes I am. When it comes to taking medicine, I can usually get into a routine and keep it going without forgetting very often. Of course, this is easier under a couple of conditions: 1) When the medicine is taken daily, 2) When it has few requirements on *when* you can take it (e.g. doesn’t have to be with food, or a certain time of day), and 3) When you have fewer other medications that you have to take. With my recent treatment changes for my RA, I ended up taking more medications than I had in recent months. For one, I upped my naproxen dosage to two times daily. Then in March, my doctor had me add Plaquenil to the mix – which is two pills that I take together once a day. Then there’s the Humira, which is a once per week injection. I’ve also been trying to get back in the habit of taking a daily multivitamin. So – there’s been a little more to keep track of. My problem is, once I break the routine, it often takes me a while to get back into it. Last week, I broke my routine.