Kickas.org Forums Treatments, Drugs and Alternatives Anti TNF and other biological medications Side effects of Enbrel

money is the same.
but your doctor has to rewrite your script...he ought to be able to do it over the phone with your pharmacy.
(and keep your insurance co out of the process)

you get two boxes containing 8 kit-trays...it's called 25ml kit.
kit is cool...even has alcohol swabs.

you will neeed to follow directions to mix the stuff up in a clean environment...takes a minute.

you do the same wait till it's room temp.
enbrel has a cute little needle-cover puller device and they will send a sharps container to you also...free.

it has no sting firstoff because the needle is thinner and uncoated with latex...and the mix-it-up-yourself stuff
has no preservative in it...it's the preservative that has that POW !

First off, I just want to say how offended I was when you asked if I was an "anti-biotic seeker." Just because I work in a Pharmacy doesn't mean that I am going to want anti-biotics all of the time or any other drugs for that matter. And change my life style? That's all I've done since I was diagnosed with AS. I carry a bottle of hand sanitizer with me every where, wash my hands after every "money encounter", people encounter and any possible bacteria encounter. I'm a freak about keeping sanitized and not getting sick. Yet, I always seem to get it.

And I don't recall saying that I do not stop my shots when I'm sick. As much as it hurts, I try to not take them til I do feel better, then resume.

I don't believe the idea behind enbrel is not being sick all the time, I believe its not hurting all the time and trying to slow the progression of the disease.

I know the risks of working in health care environments, hence the reason I am surrounded by hand sanitizer and washing my hands after the every helping of a customer. I get my flu shot every year and take all the precautions that I feel are necessary.

And when you say "its leading a life in which you dont risk your self..." what do you want me to do? quit my job, that I LOVE, stay at home and live like a [**BLEEP**] hermit? Any where you go, any job you have, anything you do you are going to come across people, germs, bacteria, illnesses, you can't hide from it, all you can do is try to prevent it, and thats what I do, all I can do.

What other lifestyle adjustments do you suggest I make. This is the career I chose and I'm not going to give up on it just from being sick every once and a while. I think you might have taken my last post as whiney and complaining, but it wasn't I was just telling my side of how the enbrel makes me feel.

And if I could "stop getting sick all of the time" I would. But it's not something I can really control. ya know? -ashlienichol-

Hi Ashlie and welcome to KA.

There are a few things you can do to 'supplement' the Enbrel. I don't know you, so bear with me if I'm preaching to the converted, but exercise is key. Pilates, yoga, swimming, weight training, dance, whatever turns your crank and keeps you moving/flexible.

Check out the Low Starch Diet. It's a bit controversial in the mainstream end of things, but it really can help. Alot of folk here have had wonderful results with it.

I would also start supplementing with mega Omega 3s and 6s, as well as Vitamin D (high doses, over 1,000 IU/day), a high quality cal/mag, and a high quality multi.

If you can get these lifestyle changes into play while you're on the Enbrel, then if you have to come off Enbrel, you might find that they will help bolster you.

Hugs,

I used the Enbrel for a year and didn't get a lot of relief. I am now on Remicade infusions every six weeks and it seems to help a lot more. But I still like my immune system is shot. I get sick if someone even sneezes in my direction

For anyone contemplating Enbrel, there is another possibility, which is an almost total lack of pain at injection and no increase in infections. That has been my experience. I have only been on Enbrel for six months, using the 50 mg. injections weekly, sometimes with the syringe and sometimes with the kit. I have had painful injections exactly twice. Once was the first time I injected it, and I inserted the needle too slowly and pushed the plunger too rapidly. Even then, the pain wasn’t all that bad. But, I learned to insert the needle briskly and inject s-l-o-w-l-y. The second painful experience was when I just forgot a couple of weeks ago (us old folks are bad to do that) and didn’t warm the solution. Ouch!

The only possible side effect I have experienced has been pretty bad insomnia that is related in time to beginning Enbrel. But, for me, the stuff turned a cripple on a cane into a semi-normal person for my age. I now walk an average of 4 miles a day and exercise on those torture machines at the gym. The only real problem is the fusion I already had.

This is not to disparage those who report painful injections or an increase in infections. Biologics are especially prone to cause different effects in different folks. But, if you are thinking about a biologic, don’t turn away because some people react poorly. You won’t know ‘till you try, and the relief is simply wonderful if everything works out.

BTW, I was on piroxicam for about 20 years before Enbrel. It was somewhat effective, but it finally begin to damage my kidneys (drug induced protein-wasting nephritis), so any medication can cause complications.
Lou

Yep, those pens does sting, even after at room temp .... I always count the seconds when its adminsterating.. average 20 to 25 seconds....

I have not had any side effects of being on enbrel at all and I have been on it for little over a year now. Only times I had to stop enbrel was when I had the surgery back in January and a couple months ago when I had the strep throat which antibotics cleared it up really FAST!

I rarely get colds.
I get paranoid about germs on cash, which is why I almost never carry cash around, I'm a debit girl all the way ... and I always tell the clerks not to handle my water bottles or soda bottles by the cap because of hands and money touching my bottles. They thank me saying they never thought of it before.

try icing the injection site for about a minute, prior to swabbing and injecting - I find this helps a lot (I use the 50mg prefilled syringe-I like it better than the epi-pens they sent by mistake one time).