The Great Oz has spoken ...

It's been a long time, but I wanted to see where things were going to go.  My psoriasis plaques are in general at least double the size of what they were when I started on Apremilast.  I have a lot of new psoriasis plaques that did not exist when I began the trial.  My joints are still swollen and tender.

At 24 weeks, my Dr. asked if I could add Methotrexate to the regimen, as I'd had success previously with dual modality therapy (900 mg of Remicade and 15 mg of Methotrexate).  Bear in mind, that a lot of people are currently on dual modality therapy of Methotrexate and Apremilast (they began the trial on both), but the Brain Trust (clearly, choking on my sarcasm) at Celgene will not permit me to add it to my regimen to see if we could achieve success.  Beyond me why they would say no. 

We already know Apremilast alone does not work for me.  Guess it's not important for them to collect data on people adding a second modality and what success, if any, could be achieved.   I would think that would actually give them just as "clean" data as that of those who began the study with Metho and Apremilist (maybe even cleaner because there would truly only be one variable).  But then again - a 30 yr.career of setting up and analyzing test and control cells makes mining data more important to me than to others.  Clearly.

I am heading out for a few days - but when I come back, I will post photos of what my skin looked like at the beginning of the trial and at the end.  Am glad I photodocumented this, because as much as I "wanted to see" - oh look I can see a freckle or I can almost see a patch of skin breaking through there - when I look at the photos, the reality is, that plaques are significantly bigger now and there are a lot more of them.  And they didn't clear.

I really wanted this to work.

So, now the search is ... what's coming down the pipeline that's not a heavy duty immunosuppressant that maybe I can piggyback with Methotrexate (from the start) this time.  Does anybody know of anything else in trial right now that is not as harsh on the immune system, as say, a Remicade?  If so, please leave a note here or email me.

Thank you for joining me on this journey ... I hope it's been informative and I'll let you all know what my next steps are going to be in fighting the Psoriasis/Psoriatic Arthritis war ... this was only a battle ... and I just wish the opposing General had a better tactical strategy.

But for now Toto ... we're outta here ...