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Page 5
| blood pressure, damage to the liver and kidneys, diabetes and blood disorders. Like aspirin, cortisone drugs do not prevent, cure, reverse or slow the progress of any illness, so symptoms are often worse when the drug is stopped than they were before treatment began. |
| Gold compounds have been used in the treatment of arthritis since World War I and in 1960 they were proven to control the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis. Gold can be taken orally or injected. Like aspirin and cortisone, gold does not cure, reverse or prevent rheumatoid arthritis; it suppresses symptoms by inhibiting cellular activity that contributes to tissue damage and inflammation. Because gold has potentially damaging effects on the kidneys, lungs, liver, bone marrow and skin, it is usually prescribed when the patient no longer responds to other drugs. Patients' blood and urine are routinely tested for sips of liver, kidney and bone marrow damage. Common side effects include diarrhea (oral gold therapy), skin rashes, painful mouth sores and decreasing effectiveness of the therapy. |
| Disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs or DMARDs are powerful drugs believed to slow inflammatory disease. Gold treatments belong to this category, as do hydroxychloroquine, chloroquine and penicilla-mine. Because they are slow-acting and require months of use before patients improve and because they are highly toxic and have dangerous side effects, patients taking these drugs must be carefully monitored. |
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