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I had pneumonia a year ago which put me in the hospital for almost a week. I managed to recover fairly well. In early September of this year developed bronchitis and was put on antibiotics. several weeks later, I was still coughing. Went and saw my GP who put me on a different antibiotic and a round of steroids. A week later I was still as bad. I have now been seeing a pulmonologist and after having CT scan, x-rays, and a broncoscopy he has determined I have chronic lung infection -… read more
Answer Summary
Members shared experiences with chronic lung infections and complications while taking RA medications, with many describing persistent... Read more
Check with your rheumy I developed a methotrexate lung and was coughing all the time when they took me off it the cough went away. Then they tried again and it of course came back. So once the confirmed if was the methotrexate I was told I cannot gave it again. My boba had developed an allergy to it
RA is known to affect the lungs - and many other organs too. I have shortness of breath, bronchiectasis, lung nodules, and a couple of other things that show up on lung CT. So I'm taking symbicort and spiriva daily (both inhalers) and have CTs and pulmonary function tests annually annually.
Shortly after going on methrotracate I developed a bad case of pneumonia followed with asthma. Took quite awhile for all to clear up. Dr blamed the methrotracate. Lately I have been on leutheumide and it has helped a lot. Dr is thinking it is increasing my liver enzymes but it seems to be the only thing which I think really helps.
hmmm I became ill after also food but never left me quite then I sucked up chlorine in shop then meds created some.
Went to doctor after reading on RA/A net UTI related bronchitis/ pneumonia/ lung infections/ tick lymes etc got doryx all but going... best of one and all.
@A myRAteam Member Good luck. I have been having trouble for almost a year. Started with bronchitis in September '15, had two rounds of antibiotics. Still had a cough. Saw pulmonologist and had lung functions tests and CT scan. Had a bronchoscopy and all the cultures came back normal. My rheumy sent me to infection disease doctor and she did more tests - all came back normal - but I still had cough and occasional green phlegm. She finally cultured that and it cam back as haemophilus influenza. Another two rounds of antibiotics and I thought we had it caught. However, the cough started back about two months ago. So my rheumy sent me to an allergist to see about allergies. He said no allergies but thought it was my overall immune system not making anti-bodies and did blood work. That showed that I had not made antibodies for most of the peumonia portions that I had two years ago. He wanted to have be decrease my medrol to nothing so that I could have the pneumonia vaccine again so that he could then retest for antibodies. He also put me on Spireva to see if that would help at all since my airway seemed to be inflamed. Saw my rheumy two days later and she feels that it has all now become my RA attacking my lungs. I've had to be of all of my RA meds for almost a year because of this. So now I'm back on methotrexate and staying on the medrol to see how/if improve. I had done so well for 10 years on methotrexate and remicade. This past year has been awful.
If you're on a daily antibiotic, that would not allow you to take any RA meds. What biologics have you tried? Have you had the pneumonia vaccine?
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