I tried remicade recently and went through 2 doses and then 20 minutes into my 3rd loading dose my heartrate went up to 165 beats a minute. I was scared and they turned off the remicade drip quickly and they sent me downstairs to ER for a few hours. I am ok, but now I am not sure I want this to happen again with another biologic. The NSD really helps me, along with avoiding sugar. I am hoping and praying with the help of NSD diet I can avoid biologics in the future.
Hopefully you can try the diet and it might help your pain levels. Hope you feel better.

I have a hard time believing the statistics usually quoted about how serious complications are less than 1 per 1000; my GP agrees these things tend to be rather under-reported. He knew of a couple casualties from side effects, and he does not have anywhere near a thousand patients on biologics. I'm sure you don't know anywhere near a thousand people on biologics either.

On the other hand, I also think biologics are less likely to cause serious problems than earlier treatment options such as prednisone, which causes severe side effects in just about everybody who has to take it long-term; it's just that the serious side effects are not as rare as people would like to think.

Hi! My opinion on biologics- don't do it unless you can't move at all. I tried Humira, Enbrel and Remicade - all with terrible side-effects. I would break out in itchy hives all over my body and got recurrent infections. I would feel better, pain wise, but had all those other issues. Now, I am antibiotic resistant to some antibiotics from taking so many biologics . I picked up every illness my child brought home from school.

Now, I take vitamins, exercise daily, have gone low starch and eliminated wheat, eggs and dairy. I take pain meds, sleep aids, low dose steroid with occassional 6 day steroid pack and NSAIDS. I just started the diet and vitamins so hoping to cut back more meds soon.

Good luck!

I am on my third and best Rheumatologist. The other two acted the same way. Here, have another NSAID. One walked out of the room I was in and said loudly, "god, does everyone here have arthritis?". I never graced his door again. They acted like I was a drug seeker. I would call and tell the receptionist to leave a message for the Dr. and she said, "Well we just don't give pain med's if that is what you are looking for." Now why couldn't they have been kind and said, "You know what, there are pain clinic's if you need more help". I didn't have a clue. Found out through my husbands secretary.

Please try the diet first and see how much relief you get.