I have a question for my Rheumatoid Arthritis warriors or to anyone who has been on Meloxicam before. If you could e-mail me or comment below, what your experience has been with it.
I just wrote about hiking and how I allow so much self-doubt to creep in. I was tempted to do this in this area too based on the response of my doctor. So here are the facts as I see them.
In November of 2017, I had a pretty severe bout of tendinitis. At the time I didn’t know if I was in an RA flare up or what the deal was. But my Rheumatologist assured me that my RA had not progressed at all. It was stable – no further sign of disease and what I was experiencing was tendinitis. I took 4 weeks off of upper body weight lifting and when I came back to it, I could only lift weights twice a week. During that time I “hurt” so much that I was taking about 8 Motrin a day, so she suggested I try Meloxicam. Instead of 8 Motrin, you just took one Meloxicam a day. I liked that idea.
I did this and it immediately helped me OR was it also that I had stopped lifting weights for four weeks that helped me as well. Whatever it was, by two weeks in, I was off the Meloxicam and off the Motrin.
Fast forward to March of 2019. My hands were hurting again and I was up to 4 Motrin a day. So I decided to start taking the Meloxicam again. I had an on-going prescription and it was available for me to take as needed.
In April we traveled to Germany and if you remember, when I got home I was really sick (sat by sick airline passengers and I didn’t take enough precautions.) I finally had to go to my regular doctor where I was given TWO rounds of antibiotics. I was really sick. I mentioned to her that I had this rash on my neck that wouldn’t go away. I thought maybe it was from new shirts I had bought and had not washed first??? I thought it was better though. She told me I could use some anti-itch cream but to let her know if it got worse.
In May I went to Italy. I had a fantastic time. It was a slow paced trip and I loved EVERY minute of it. I did not come back sick. Life was good. But I had a big swim meet in June and I needed to get some practices in. I noticed that when I swam, I was having a really tough time breathing. For instance, when I very first got back in the pool in 2016, I could NOT flip any turns. Not because I didn’t know how, but because I couldn’t hold my breath. Well a few months of regular swimming and I was fine. But this was taking me back to how I felt when I first started. I wrote it off to traveling to Germany and Italy and said, I just need to swim more.
In June, every night when I would lay on my left side, my entire arm would fall asleep and it would take a while to shake my arm back awake. I would shake it awake and then roll over to my right side and fall back asleep.
I went to the swim meet and I did pretty well, but I was really caught off guard how I could not breathe during the 400 IM. Like it was scary bad, but I didn’t let on to anyone. Again, I thought it must be the altitude and the traveling I did. But I know I decided then and there I was never swimming the 400 IM again. I struggled some on my other races but they were much shorter races so it was not as noticeable.
When I got home from the meet, the following Monday I decided to swim a US Masters Summer Challenge. It’s swim 2000 yards straight. I went to the outdoor pool, put my music on and started to swim. I literally could only flip the first turn. It was then that I was like – WHAT is happening. I got home and started to look up the side-effects of Meloxicam.
First of all if you have an allergy to Aspirin, you shouldn’t take it. I DO HAVE AN ALLERGY TO ASPIRIN. Aspirin makes me get hives (rash) and makes me swell to where I can’t breathe. HELLO. Meloxicam can cause inflammation. WHAT – WAIT. I am taking it because of inflammation and now you say it can cause inflammation? In severe cases it can cause stroke. OKAY that was enough for me. I stopped that day and went back to Motrin.
Within two days, the rash was gone and my arm was no longer falling asleep. My endurance came back with my swimming and I don’t struggle to swim long distances with flip turns anymore. Guess what else? My inflammation is way better? Go figure. When I mentioned this to a new Podiatrist last week, he said “You were headed towards anaphylactic shock. I’m putting that on the medications you are allergic to.” I was like – Oh shit.
However my Rheumatologist seems to think that those symptoms cannot be from the medicine but she does agree that if I’m better without it then just go back to Motrin. The foot doctor said that Rheumatologists like to prescribe Meloxicam. I don’t know. I get 2 – 15 minute appointments a year to ask all my questions to my RA doctor. But the RA community is awesome. Has anyone experienced anything similar?
I think that the first time I was okay, because I only ended up taking it for 2 weeks. But this time I took it from March to June and it built up in my body??? I can tell you that the 400 IM is back on the table. Anyway – your thoughts?
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