Methotraxate

VSSDot

Hello, Can anyone give me some help and advice? My OH is in the early stages of getting a definate diagnosis for some form of inflammatory arthritis - it's not confirmed yet as Rheumatoid, but that's the most likely label. He's been to the hospital clinic (and they were amazing), ad he was advised to start immediatley on Methotrexate.

He's very reluctant to take anything that going to supress his immune system - we're livestock farmers and the nature of the job involves quite a lot of contact with cow ****, soccasionally sick animals, handling live vaccines and generally working in what would by most be classed as a dirty environment. At the moment, he feels that if anything is going to stop him from doing stuff, he'd rather it was because it was painful than something that "might" make him ill.

Can anyone give me any advice? Is taking methotraxate going to make him really susceptible to bugs? Or are they medics just covering their backs?

[Deleted User]

Hi VSSDot, I'm afraid I don't know a definitive answer to that question - but hopefully by bumping your post someone with relevant experiences of their own may see it and be able to give you their thoughts.

Has your husband spoken to his doctors to make them aware of his profession? It sounds as though it would be useful and important to talk to them about it and get their advice.

Having a quick look online, I see there have been studies on the subject, which might be worth a read:
https://academic.oup.com/rheumatology/article/48/8/867/1785172
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6352130/

The Versus Arthritis information page on Methotrexate is here, which does mention the increased infection risk:
https://www.versusarthritis.org/media/1354/methotrexate-information-booklet.pdf

It seems as though it's hard for anyone to be definitive about how great the increased risk is, but definitely sounds worth discussing with your husbands doctors.

with best wishes,

Ann