Should I come off Fumaderm?

[Caroline]

Hi Fred

Thank you for the advice. Should I stay on fumaderm for life so? (well until I decide to have children). I just thought that because my psoriasis is clear that I should consider coming off the fumaderm (in hopes that it would stay clear). The thoughts of taking fumaderm forever is scary, and expensive :(

Ruth

Hello Ruth,

I see that Fred is mowing grass away before my feet, though I still may be able to add some things to the discussion, of which I hope you will read them.
(basic reason that Fred is mowing grass away, is because since he moved he has a high speed line, before he had dial up, but now he is also speedy in posting, but all that is off-topic).
Fumaderm is, compared to other treatments, relatively cheap. Methotrexate (MTX) is cheaper, but very poisonous.
144 euro's a month is acceptable, i pay about 600 euro's for 600 tablets, good for about 2-3 months, but most of it is covered by the insurance.

You are only on 1 tablet per day, i think there is a possibility that you could get away with only a diet. You should check the relevant posts on our forum.
This because psoriasis is an immune disease and there are certain triggers that if you avoid them could prevent an outbreak.

Indeed as Fred states, it is not a new drug, it is already quite old. And there is a lot of experience with DMF which show that it is quite harmless AS LONG AS you keep an eye on your blood measurements (I know this is not the right way to say, but I am not english, so forgive me) on liver functions and lymphocytes. In the long experience of DMF, 30 years, there were two problems in the Netherlands over thousands of patients, both were basically not caused by the medication but due to lack of checking the status of the lymphocytes.

The rate of success with DMF at psoriasis is around 70%, apparently you belong to one of them and that is lucky.

Fumarates are a body owned substance, that is the power of it, they control a part of the energy cycle in your cells. DMF's like fumaderm, power up a broken part of this energy cycle and have an immunosuppressive function. This takes care of the problem in the immune system that psoriasis basically is. It has nothing to do with your skin, psoriasis gives only an expression on you skin or joints if you have PsA.

I know a girl/woman who has used DMF since her 16th and she is now around her thirties. She uses an x-fold more than you are using now and she is still going strong.

IF your are going for children, than stop the use of DMF. Not that there is an indication for it, but just because we don't know, you better be on the safe side.

Looking at what is happening, DMF is on the edge of making a large step in use as it appears to have a broader effect on more auto-immune diseases as psoriasis.
It is know to be able to stop MS and Crohns disease, and seems to have positive effects on meunieres, because of the flushes.

I am curious about your personal experiences with DMF.

cheers,
Caroline