First Humira Shot

On Monday I took my first Humira shot. These things are quite expensive and so far my insurance has denied me coverage. I think that each shot is about $600. Two angels have helped me out with my first two shots and I'm hoping I won't need more than 3 or 4 in total. I've heard that many women have strange side effects from this drug, but so far, I only have a funny taste in my mouth after the injection and a funny headachy feeling that went away really fast. Rather uneventful otherwise.

NK Assay results after LIT#2 are back today. My NKs dropped into the normal range with the exception of my CD3 cells...which is, my understanding, kind of the "overall" picture of one's immune system. Mine is always on heightened alert. That didn't change. At least we now know that LIT does work to lower my NKs. Well worth the payment of the test.

Friday I am meeting up with one of my Humira angels for tea and am getting to see her 5 week old son. :-) He is a Beer baby and so it's all rather exciting to welcome him into the world. Afterwards I've got a endometrial biopsy scheduled, same day, to see if the endometriosis that I had removed 8 or 9 weeks ago left me with any NKUs (uterine natural killer cells). If yes, then the Humira will counteract them. If not, then I can likely stop the Humira after 3 or 4 shots. It seems that taking Humira is good for women who have endo. I'm not sure if any studies have been done on women who have had their endo removed though.

There's a chance I'll have an NK flare from the Humira. Standard treatment for this is more LIT (in Mexico) or IVIg (at $2015 a pop!). I've heard that there's a write up for how to do the LIT procedure in an Obstetrics book that I found online on Amazon.com. I bought a copy last night and, I swear, if this is easy to do, I'll buy myself a centrifuge on ebay and I'll start doing my own LITs. Okay, that sounds a little scary to do, but so long as one uses sterile techniques, and follows protocol, and has an ER nearby in case of a bad reaction, it should be something one, such as myself, could do rather easily. Chemistry is like cooking. Really. It is.

It'll take two weeks to get the biopsy results from Dr. W, and then we'll know for sure about the NKUs. In the meanwhile, my AF is due sometime this weekend, and on CD6 I am going to start taking heparin or lovenox just in case we get clearance to go ahead with the FET.

I kind of doubt we'll get the green light due to my having endometriosis. They do like for a woman to have a full 30 days of Humira in the system when proceding, but it'll be like 25 days...so it'll be really close. I just wonder if that's cutting it short or not?

There's so much to juggle and I'm trying to keep things straight, get bills paid on time (failing miserably), and keep treading water with work. One of my deals fell through, an offer that was expected on another house never came in (and I'm pissed that the other real estate agent even BOTHERED to tell me she was sending me one), and so I'm back to square 1.

Such is life.