# Experience on Methotrexate

Several months ago [I wrote](https://www.jefftk.com/p/wrist-update) about how my wrists/hands were still not doing well, and about how I was going to be trying Methotrexate. I have since gone off it, initially for a covid shot, but I'm now considering staying off it.

After meeting again with my rheumatologist on 2021-06-28 I started on 10mg/wk (four tablets) taken all at once, plus 1mg/d folic acid (one tablet). My first dose was 2021-06-30. This was just over two weeks after [Nora](https://www.norawise.com) was born and my third day back at work, so it's not a good example of "change only one thing at a time". Initially I noticed a small increase in mouth sores, but not anything else. It's possible that my wrists and hands were feeling somewhat better, but it's already very variable, with good and bad days.

I met with the rheumatologist again on 2021-08-04, and we increased my dose to 15mg/wk (six tablets). I still didn't notice much of a change.

In October I noticed that my food preferences had changed. It happened very slowly, over many weeks. I became less interested in strongly flavored savory foods (normally something I enjoy a lot), and would have more days when I forgot to eat lunch (usually only happens rarely, when I'm super interested in what I'm working on). It became much more common that I would notice that it was early afternoon, feel like one ought to should eat lunch, go down to the kitchen, and end up having a bowl of cereal. I often just wasn't hungry, though I would still eat out of feeling like that's what I should do, and I stayed in my normal [weight range](https://www.jefftk.com/weight). If I did actually eat some savory food, I often enjoyed it once I was doing it, but before I started the smell and thought were pretty negative. I thought it was likely that this was related to the medication, but didn't know for sure.

We met again on 2021-10-29, and we decided that since I was immunocompromised I should get a third covid shot. This meant going off the medication, so my immune system would be able to react to the vaccination, and my last dose was Wednesday 2021-10-27. The plan was that when I started again, I would go up to 20mg/wk (8 tablets) still once a week but ~10hr apart (evening and following morning).

I didn't feel any change to my wrists/hands as I went off the medication, but on 2021-11-06 (10d) I noticed that I was hungry again. The next day, (11d) it was very clear that I wanted savory food again, and I cooked a really big [house dinner](https://www.jefftk.com/p/shared-house-setup). I can't quite tell whether my food preferences are back where they were before going on the medication, but they're pretty close.

I also noticed that may be my motivation was different, especially around cleaning. It's normally [my job](https://www.jefftk.com/p/dividing-tasks) to tidy up the downstairs after the kids have gone to bed, and I had been massively falling down on that over the past few months. I could still do it, and occasionally got myself through it, but it required a lot of willpower. I' been assuming that this was related to having a newborn, but the night of the 7th (11d) I thoroughly cleaned up and it was easy. I've continued tidying each night since and it keeps feeling easy. I think energy/motivation effects have also affected other aspects of my life, but nothing that is so clear from the outside. This was a pretty weird experience, and increases my guess for how much of this sort of thing differing between people is biological.

[![](https://www.jefftk.com/downstairs-messy.jpg)](https://www.jefftk.com/downstairs-messy-big.jpg)

[![](https://www.jefftk.com/downstairs-clean.jpg)](https://www.jefftk.com/downstairs-clean-big.jpg)

Today would've been my first dose after the covid booster, and I still haven't noticed any change to my wrists/hands. I'm not currently planning to go back on methotrexate; while I haven't talked to my rheumatologist yet unless the higher dose of methotrexate completely fixed my problems (and currently I think it probably doesn't help at all) I don't think it would be worth the side effects.