methotrexate and alcohol - warning, long!

auntie

Hi everyone, I'm Lottie, 23, and have had seronegative arthritis for two years. I'm on 15mg/week of methotrexate (tablets) and folic acid. I have no complaints about the drug, it works really well for me and I have no side effects and since taking it, my knees can function almost normally now. I know all this makes me really lucky and I should count my blessings, but I find that not being able to drink much alcohol really affects my social life. I'm in my early 20's, single, and moved to London 6 months ago for work. I have made great friends here and am really enjoying myself but I feel limited only being able to have a couple of glasses of wine a week, and I often find myself going overboard and drinking more than I'm supposed to. Recently I've been getting really worried that I might be doing long term damage to my health by drinking too much (I don't even drink that much compared to many of my friends!) and I just wondered if anyone has any advice about how much it's safe to drink in practice on MTX, and how you cope when you're out with friends or colleagues and can't have a drink, or whether it might be worth trying out different medication which doesn't react so badly with alcohol?

Thanks everyone, any tips or words of wisdom welcome.

Lottie

MarkC

Hi Lottie,

I was diagnosed in December at the grand old age of 26, so the days of proper hard drinking are thankfully behind me! However I do love a good drink still and since getting arthritis and being on methotrexate, my liver function has actually improved! So, without wanting to advise you to get hammered a lot, I would guess that providing you are being monitored by blood tests, you may be able to have more than a couple of glasses of wine when you're out.

When I was diagnosed, I was told that I could still have a good drink, just not to go crazy, which isn't bad advice anyway, and not to do shots. Oh, and not to drink on methotrexate day and the day after as well, which for some stupid reason I chose as a Wednesday :roll:

What I try to do now is have a few glasses of water instead of an alcoholic drink every now and then, which I never used to do, but again is probably a good idea anyway.

Hope I've made sense? And if anyone thinks what I've said is bad advice, please let me know as it's what im doing!

km89

Hi Lottie,

I'm 21 and I've been taking methotrexate (20mg) for about 9 months. To be honest, I've been drinking as much as I did before I was diagnosed, which is quite a lot, being a student and all, and I haven't noticed any change.
I think as long as you keep up to date with your blood tests, there's no harm in drinking what you want. I don't usually end up drinking on the day I take it or the day after, generally because I feel like crap, but after that, I'm fine.
So don't worry about going overboard, just keep up to date with all the monitoring just to make sure there isn't any damage being done.

Katie