Plaquenil and Psoriasis

Anyone on here with psoriasis ever take plaquenil?

I have mild psoriasis and will be starting plaquenil even though it is contraindicated. It can cause a flare up with people with existing psoriasis.

My llmd made sure I was well aware of the risk however I am willing to gamble because the benefit may outweigh the potential flare up of psoriasis.

Just curious if anyone has been in a similar situation...

Thanks for reading!!! :)

I don't have psoriasis, but in case you don't have the latest on plaquenil.

Plaquenil is an anti malarial and if you have Babesia symptoms you might find that some of your symptoms disappear. That's how I got involved with the forum. My symptoms of drenching sweats, pain on the soles of my feet and extreme joint pain all disappeared.

It is a drug that builds up in the blood and takes about three months to get to an effective level. Having said that the sweats and feet pain disappeared almost over night. I had never had that type of joint pain, but now after about 9 months I rarely have it but fall is here so we'll see.

It's pretty toxic, but a very recent study showed the problem was the dosing. New dosing instructions are not based on weight. Now it is 200mg a day (or twice a day) instead of before when they were dosing on actual weight (rather than ideal).

So the thing that happens is something particular to your eyes. You need to have a very specific imaging done on your eyes. It's a medical test not an eye test so medical insurance covers it. But your eye doctor should know what has to be done and who to refer you to.

It used to be that you needed to repeat the test every 6 months, then a year out. Now they know with proper dosing it takes 5 years for the dosage to become high enough to do the damage.

You need to get a baseline test done now or soon. Then at around 5 years (eye doc will decide) so they can compare them. They can see with the comparison the minutest of changes and stop the drug before it does damage, but you need the baseline.

I don't have the link handy, but if you search Gkamom and plaquenil it will come up. You should pass it along to your doctor. My eye doctor gave me the link and I printed for the doc who prescribed it. It helped him to have that info.

For me it has been a wonder drug. The article may have more info regarding psoriasis but since I don't have it I didn't notice.

Have a good day,
Kim

I have had a much different experience with Plaquenil.

It floored me.
On Day 1, I felt flu- like & tired.
On Day 2, I couldn't even get out of bed.
After going into another 3rd bed-ridden day,
I stopped immediately.
I improved.

Then, a week later, I decided to try it again, just to be sure.
The same thing happened.
I, personally, would never use it again.
Plaquenil just wrecked me.

Everyone has such different experiences with this drug.
I am so surprised to see how many people do well on it.

It is a very old anti-malarial drug.