Hydroxychloroquine (Plaquenil) anyone?

[pregnantandfrustrated]

So after dealing with this for 8 months with absolutely no treatment, I finally saw a rheumatologist today! Good news is that she has seen this before, however, her patients usually have another autoimmune disease such as lupus or arthritis. I will start taking Plaquenil. Oddly it's a malaria medicine. Apparently she prescribes this to avoid stronger drugs such as steroids and methotrexate. My symptoms have improved or have been mostly dormant for the last week and a half. I get occasional pains in my sternum and itching, but no serious inflammation. Because inflammation is caused by an imbalance in hormones, I don't know if this improvement is due to me finally delivering my baby and discontinued breastfeeding. I also got a copper IUD put in as opposed to the kind that has a hormonal barrel on it. I'm trying to regulate my hormones as much as possible since this all started with my pregnancy. She said she sees that alot where women's symptoms of an autoimmune disease first appear during pregnancy. She is prescribing the Plaquenil because isn't as strong as steroids or methotrexate, which I am very grateful for. We are aiming for a one year plan, and the goal is to have this go into remission in about 6 months. She will then ween me off the med. I will then have my vision checked because long term use of the med can cause vision problems (she said more like years, but wants to be safe anyway).  In the meantime, I will be documenting my progress by drawing a picture of my breast and where the hard masses are, and then documenting their shrinking. Aside from this I will be getting much lab work done. She would like to check for other underlying autoimmune diseases. I hope this medication works and am wondering if anyone else has tried this treatment before?

[Veronica36]

Hi! I would love to know if actually that medicine worked, or was just hormonal, as you said...so please keep us posted!
Thanks!

[pregnantandfrustrated]

Yes, she's used this on other patients. The hard mass I had is gone, but not sure if it is because of the meds or the fact that much was going on with my hormones (got my period for the first time in 11 months because of pregnancy). Now that I know that inflammation is due to imbalance of hormones, I stay in tune with that. However, just a few days ago, I had another abscess come open after about two weeks of nothing. The Dr. said it would take about 3 months for the meds to show improvement and about 6 months to see if it has gone into remission.  

[kuulei04]

I have never heard of tgis medicine before but it would be interesting to know if it works!  Thank you for keeping us posted and as well as letting us know how this medication does.  I saw a rheumatologist too and he wanted to put me on steroids and methotrexate and I was over it.  I'm taking my turmeric capsules and I've seen improvement.  Has she done this treatment with her other patients that had GM?