Changing biologics

Changing Biologics

Wendy Favorito
Consumer Director Arthritis Australia
Chair, Arthritis Australia National Consumer Reference Group (rheumatoid arthritis)

Just recently I started to realise that my disease I think was becoming a little bit worse and I didn’t want to acknowledge it. I put my head in the sand and I would tell anyone else not to do that but I put my head in the sand because I didn’t want to change; I had such good results from this biologic that I was scared to move off and try something else. And so I would go to my rheumatologist and say, “Yeah I’m probably not as good as what I could be but I’m fine and I’m managing,” and so I would give a little bit of the story but not the full picture and then I got to that point where I couldn’t keep up the ruse anymore and I said to her, I don’t think things are as good as what they should be and I’m struggling. I’m really tired again. My pain’s really bad. I’m dropping things. I’m finding it hard to do tasks I could do easily before and so we agreed it was time to switch biologics.

I trusted her implicitly and I knew that that’s what I would do but I was scared and I didn’t’ want to; I didn’t want to change, I wanted to just hope desperately that the other drug would keep working as well as it had in the past. But I committed to changing and I sat nervously waiting to get the new script for the new medication and in that period of time I doubted myself and I questioned whether I was as bad as what I was. And then the script came and I went to the chemist and I filled it and I was sweaty and my heart was racing and I felt nervous. And I came home and I gave myself that first injection and 10 days later I feel better.

So it’s as recent as that that I’ve started this new biologic and as I did with the first biologic, I would say I’ve had a fairly rapid response. So what I thought I might have been imagining in my head in terms of getting worse, it was real and it wasn’t just me, you know, imagining it. It actually was as bad as what I suspected all along and so now I’m on my second biologic and thankfully so far I can feel that I’m having a good response to it. So my hope is that I’ll have another good 10 – if not longer – years on this then I won’t have to change. So that’s my hope.