Thursday, January 9, 2014

I hate MTX.

I have been doing acupuncture therapy for allergy elimination for the better part of a year now. (If you are interested in that, Google "NAET" or "Nambudripad's Allergy Elimination Therapy".) The emotional and physical changes from that have been very noticeable. I am the third of four in my family who has successfully used this therapy (each for different reasons). My latest bloodwork shows that the inflammation level in my body is the lowest it has been in 5 years. So, I asked my doctor about the possibility of getting off Methotrexate - which is what I REALLY want to happen. She told me she did not recommend that because if I get off of it and then go into a flare and try to start it again, it may not be effective. She has never said this before. She KNEW I have wanted to stop that medicine from the get-go. Anybody have any experience with stopping and restarting it? I'd love to see some commentary on that.

All that said, I took a cold just before Christmas. It might have even been a flu strain, but I never went to the doctor because the fever was low-grade. (It sure FELT like the flu the first few days.) I know it takes me a longer time than most people to recover from an illness, so I stopped Methotrexate as soon as it began. The fever was gone after about 4 days, but the lingering cough and mucous production continues (though it does seem to get better each day and is almost cleared up now). I have not restarted the Methotrexate because I do not want it to interfere with recovering from this cold-whatever-it-is. I almost restarted it last night because I really am feeling a lot better but thought, no, I do not want to relapse. I woke this morning with a very congested head, so I'm confident not restarting was the right choice. So, I've been without the Methotrexate for 3 weeks now, and have had no noticeable change in inflammation or pain levels (even with some HORRIBLE cold and wet weather). I'm tempted to just not restart it even after I'm completely well from this cold.