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:
“I will use treatment to help the sick according to my ability and judgment, but never with a view to injury and wrongdoing. Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course. Similarly, I will not give to a woman a pessary to cause abortion. I will keep pure and holy both my life and my art.”
—Hippocrates (c. 460–c. 370 B.C.)
“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)
“[17th-century] Puritans were the first modern parents. Like many of us, they looked on their treatment of children as a test of their own self-control. Their goal was not to simply to ensure the child’s duty to the family, but to help him or her make personal, individual commitments. They were the first authors to state that children must obey God rather than parents, in case of a clear conflict.”
—C. John Sommerville (20th century)