In a message dated 12/31/04 7:55:37 PM Central Standard Time,
pdoan298@... writes:

It seems like every day a different body part hurts and is swollen, red and
painful. Is it normal for this to "chase" around the body like
this?
I dont know that you could call it normal in fact there are few concrete
statements you could accurately make about the normal symptoms of psoriasis. The
wandering nature of your symptoms is rare but I have heard many people describe
it the way you do.
other than Tylenol (which does nothing) what can I do
for pain?
I will agree that even 3 seperate daily doses of Tylenol totalling 1500 mg
did very little to ease my knee and shoulder pain. I had great relief and
satisfaction with Vioxx at dosage of 10mg per day but it took about a week to
notice
significant improvement and at 10 days I was able to discontinue the Vioxx
for many months. I would repeat the Vioxx for several days when necessary which
ended up being about 2 weeks each 4 months. Celebrex and Bextra are
alternatives to the Vioxx which is no longer available. Both of these two
alternatives
target the same chemistry in the body that works to prevent what causes the
pain so they arent really the same thing as drugs like tylenol etc Just dont
take massive quantities of them for extended periods and they may work well for
you. There are other drugs that may help too but I havent used any others.
I started reading about MTX and one of the listed side effects
is hair loss. Does this really happen?
At the dosage level you said you were prescribed for treatment of PA the
chances of hair loss are minimal. The risk that you should most be concerned
with is the possibility of liver problems which should be monitored by your
doctor. Also many people on oral MTX for PA report problems with mouth sores and
digestive disorders but usually that problem can be avoided or minimised by
making sure you get enough folic acid or by changing to injected MTX rather than
oral. Either way you still need to ensure sufficient folic acid. Orin


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