It's Enbrel AKA etanercept

3 posts in one day. I may never get over the effort.

The hospital has phoned; they want to swap PuffyFingers from Methotrexate to Enbrel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etanercept

The advantage:
Enbrel doesn't mess up liver function. So PuffyFingers' liver will start to look more like that of a 6 year old, rather than that of a 40 year old alcoholic.

The downsides:
Higher risk of lymphoma (that's cancer isn't it?)
Higher risk of severe infection. The stats for children on Enbrel are 1 in 100 per year will have a severe infection. I think the definition of a severe infection is one that requires hospitalization, if you know otherwise please let me know.

Off to get a coffee to recover from too many blog posts.