Cosentyx for psoriatic arthritis Fred's journey

[Fred]

Week 12 update:

Just had my week 12 shot and thought I would give an update on how things are going.

First off I have to say WOW I thought Stelara was good but cosentyx beats it hands down, I hadn't realised how bad things had got with the psoriatic arthritis and it feels like I'm getting another new life again.  

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Ok let's start with the psoriasis: (excuse the photo's they're not great)

After what I had read about Cosentyx I have to say I'm not as impressed as I thought I would be about the psoriasis. I thought going by what I had read that it would now all be gone, but it's no big deal for me as I'm more interested in what it does for psoriatic arthritis.

Don't get me wrong I'm pleased with it as there are no flakes, but you can still see where it is and I'm sure I've had better with Stelara in the past. But it's still early days and looking at it it is going in the right direction, but it's just that I have heard people say they were clear in a few weeks.

Anyway you can see the difference:

Week 1 Shin


Week 12 Shin


Week 1 Torso under arm


Week 12 Torso under arm

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Now to the most important part for me about this treatment as I went onto it to try and help the psoriatic arthritis.  

   

I'm Over The Moon.

I was first diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis about 30 years ago and I honestly can't remember the last time I felt this good with it. Some of you may know that about ten years ago it struck me down with a vengeance and I was unable to dress myself or even lift a cup of coffee with two hands and my life had become hell. It was then that I first went onto the bio's (Remicade) and I started getting my life back, after a few fails I moved onto Stelara which I had been on this past 6 years and although it was never great for psoriatic arthritis it did help me carry on a reasonable life.

However the winters and damp days were getting worse as the years went on and I hadn't realised how bad it was as it crept up on me slowly. I started getting problems with movement and walking again and it looked like it was going to get worse as time went on, so that is why I went onto Cosentyx as soon as it was available.

Hang on I need another WOW! sorry if I'm boring you but I feel so good about this.

Now I have found like Stelara the benefit does seem to go up and down over the times scale between shots. But unlike Stelara, Cosentyx is over a 4 week period as opposed to 12 weeks. So what's my 4 weeks like on Cosentyx?

Well at the worst I'm around a score of three, and at the best I have reached a score of ZERO (Yes zero). The best time is around week 2 and 3 and I hardly have any pain even if it's damp, then week 1 and 4 is when I notice it more with 4 probably being the worse. So I'm week 4 today and it's damp and I have a score of 2, this has been my worse this month and I have been at 1 - 0 for most of the time.

*I use the PsAscore to keep track of things.

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Side effects:

Now this is where things could get interesting. I had a bought of diarrhoea the day after my last shot and it lasted a couple of days. I hadn't had it with the other starting shots and don't know if it is the Cosentyx or not, but it is one of the side effects. So I'm just going to have to see how things go tomorrow.

Should it be an ongoing thing I will have to weigh up the benefits against the inconvenience. At the moment I would put up a with a couple of days of diarrhoea per month to have two weeks pain free and only very mild psoriatic arthritis for the other days.

Apart from that no other side effects to report.

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So to sum up:

After 12 weeks of Cosentyx I'm amazed and even if it just gets me through this winter feeling the way I do I will be very grateful.

If you have bad psoriatic arthritis and your treatment isn't working as good as it once was, go and push your dermatologist for Cosentyx.

It's Amazing.

*Sorry for the long post, but I'm so happy.