Methotrexate - a year on.....

It has been almost a year since our beautiful Emma has been on Methotrexate.  And it has been almost a year since she has had any broken skin or any infections and she has hardly even been to the GP.  We no longer need to smother her skin in steroid creams and she hardly ever needs anti-histimine and I can't remember the last time I had to sedate her to stop her scratching herself silly.

Before Methotrexate

A few weeks later

For the most she has had the best year of her life.  There have been a few hiccups, a couple of trips to hospital as a precaution, once for a tummy bug, once for a high temperature - If an immunosuppressed person gets sick, they can go downhill so very fast, so we have to be super cautious and get her sorted straight away.   But these were merely normal childhood illnesses. She has barely missed a day of school in the last 3 terms - compare that to missing almost half of the first term last year.  In fact, this year she hasn't even caught the coughs and colds the other two have had.

Methotrexate has some nasty side effects and I must confess, sometimes on Saturday night after taking her pills, she feels really nauseous and sometimes she is sick.  But even if that is the case, she is usually fine on the Sunday.  We haven't noticed any other side effects - she certainly isn't too knocked out by them like we were told she could be.  Her monthly blood tests have all come back positive.  The only annoying thing is she cant seem to get rid of the molluscum on her back as her immune system isn't fighting it.

For the most, her skin is amazing.  Her hands that have always been a chronic problem but now they look pretty normal - they are no longer cracked, raw and bleeding nor are they infected - and this means Emma will wash her hands better and therefore less germs are spread around.  The skin on her body looks good and clear.  The only area that is still a problem is her feet, but they are nothing compared to what they were a year ago.  Emma has even been brave enough to walk bare foot on the beach and go in the sea.  That is a major breakthrough for her.

Cheesy grin but look at the clear skin

Beautiful Hands

Feet that are healing up nicely

Her dermatologist is really happy with the results.  And whilst we still don't know how much longer Emma will be on the drug, I am hoping that we are about halfway through our methotrexate journey.

I am really pleased we decided to put Emma on Methotrexate.  It is no easy decision to give your child a serious drug.  I rarely take anything stronger than paracetamol myself and felt like the world's worst parent the first time I gave Emma Vallergan (a sedating anti-histimine).  Once we made the decision to go ahead with the immuno-suppressant drug, we knew we would be putting her at serious risk of getting really sick.

But for Emma it has been a life line.  A chance to start living a life that wasn't taken over by her eczema, an opportunity to play at the beach without it ending in blood and tears.  Her school work has improved, she is better at sport,  her attention span has got bigger (yes, really - she is reading books now) and we are seeing on a daily basis what a fantastic kid was hiding behind the itchy scratchy exterior.  Everything is better since we have got her eczema under control and stopped the constant reinfections.

It's hard to believe that a year ago I could never have imagined bed time being like this for Emma.  She would have been writhing around the bed and scratching till she bleed.

Content and happy at bed time

Yeah. CONTENT.  That is the word to describe where we are on our journey.


Barbs x.