The right medication helps RA patient live normally again

JEAN VASQUEZ was a hard worker at the University of the East Ramon Magsaysay Medical Center (UERMMC). She was a cashier in the outpatient clinic, and was accustomed to meeting different patients.

However, when she was 50 years old, she began experiencing joint pains in her left knee, and soon found it difficult to concentrate on her daily work and maintaining the household. Then daily fevers followed accompanied by severe pain.

She saw her first rheumatologist in 2001. By then, her pain and discomfort had already spread to her other joints. Vasquez was officially diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in 2001 as she was turning 51.

She was first given oral medications, methotrexate and hydroxychloroquine, steroids and pain relievers. In 2003, she was referred to another rheumatologist, Dr. Nympha Ribargoso. “We needed to try her on something else,” recalled Dr. Ribargoso, a rheumatologist in UERMMC and at the Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital. “We just weren’t getting the results we wanted from her first line of treatment.”

Vasquez received her first intravenous medication, infliximab infusion, in 2004. In 2008, Dr. Ribargoso tried Vasquez on etanercept injections for 10 months. Again they were not satisfied with the results.

“We were looking for the best way to treat the RA and up to that point, none of the medications were giving the results we wanted,” Dr. Ribargoso said. They decided to try Tocilizumab.

In May 2010, Vasquez received her first dose of Tocilizumab. Her joint pains and swellings subsided. It was the best improvement she had seen from her medications and she was very happy.

“I was surprised at how quickly the medicine worked,” Vasquez said. “After my first few infusions of Tocilizumab I could walk longer, I felt immediate relief, and I could even go up the stairs. I started to feel a little like my old self again.”

Tocilizumab, in combination with methotrexate, is indicated for the treatment of moderate to severe active RA in adult patients who have either responded inadequately to, or who were intolerant to, previous therapy with one or more diseasemodifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs) or TNF antagonists, two classes of drugs used to slow down RA progression.

In these patients, Tocilizumab can be given as monotherapy in case of intolerance to methotrexate or where continued treatment with methotrexate is inappropriate.

Tocilizumab is a prescription drug and should only be taken with the advice and supervision of a physician.