Treatment
Treatment plans typically involve suppression of the immune system with medicines. The first line drug is systemic steroid, prednisone orally or medroxyprednisolone intravenously, depending how sick the patient is. It works fast to control symptoms and reduced inflammation, but is associated with a number of potentially serious side effects. Doctors typically starts patients on calcium, vitamin D and bisphosphonates to prevent osteoporosis while he or she is on steroids. A steroid-sparing medication (e.g. azathioprine or cyclophosphamide) is often given with the steroid. It will take weeks before this medication to reach it full effect, at which time, steroid can be slowly tapered. The patient will need close follow-up with a rheumatologist or internist.
Read more about this topic: Relapsing Polychondritis
Famous quotes containing the word treatment:
“Narcissist: psychoanalytic term for the person who loves himself more than his analyst; considered to be the manifestation of a dire mental disease whose successful treatment depends on the patient learning to love the analyst more and himself less.”
—Thomas Szasz (b. 1920)
“I feel that any form of so called psychotherapy is strongly contraindicated for addicts.... The question “Why did you start using narcotics in the first place?” should never be asked. It is quite as irrelevant to treatment as it would be to ask a malarial patient why he went to a malarial area.”
—William Burroughs (b. 1914)
“Our treatment of both older people and children reflects the value we place on independence and autonomy. We do our best to make our children independent from birth. We leave them all alone in rooms with the lights out and tell them, “Go to sleep by yourselves.” And the old people we respect most are the ones who will fight for their independence, who would sooner starve to death than ask for help.”
—Margaret Mead (1901–1978)