Your doctor’s not wrong about the polka dots. After about a week with bad reactions popping up at every injection site, my doctor had me stop for about a week - I basically had no injection sites left that weren’t affected. But, after I re-started, the reactions weren’t as bad and now that I’m about six weeks out from the worst of it, my reactions are pretty minimal, thankfully.

The injections are painful, I can’t lie. I’ve done exactly one in my thigh and one in my arm and never again in those places because it hurt too much. So I rotate between my abdomen and hips, I ice before and after, and I use my kids’ Buzzy (they have it on Amazon) near the injection site while my husband gives me the injection. I am not great with needles as it is and these are painful enough that I can’t make myself do it. 🤦‍♀️ I will say they seem less painful now than the first few weeks, but that may just be that I’m more used to it now. Also, the injection site is painful for about five minutes after and then it’s back to normal.

Despite all this, I’m happy to have found something that is finally helping. I don’t think I would have stuck with it if I hadn’t seen a difference in joint pain pretty quickly. I hope this is helpful- I don’t want to discourage you but wanted to be honest. I’m still on it despite all of this. :-) good luck!

My rheumatologist has prescribed Kineret for me as well. When disclosing the risks of the medication, he said that many of his patients developed a rash at the injection sites to the point that their bodies looked “polka dotted.” That risk, combined with the cost and the fact that the daily injection is apparently very painful, really has me re-thinking this medication! How do
you handle the pain from the injection? Thanks!