folic acid

[bozzly]

I am on 10mg a week (friday) of MTX but only take folic acid on one day (monday).
Reading the posts I see that others take it every day. Is it normal that I am only taking it once?

[Ihurt]

When I started MXT, the folic acid wasone day (24 hours later). Now I take"Leuvocourin" whichis folic acid with something else (I forget). It's the same dosage, 24 hours after my injection.

Ihurt

[luvwinnie]

I take it daily.

[girl_24]

I take MTX on Tuesdays and I take my Folic Acid on Sundays only.

[changzongli]

Folate supplementation with 1 mg daily or 7 mg once weekly should be considered for all patients.

[RichJ]

hi changzongli,
welcome to the p family. you have met some of the wonderful people on here and will find alot of great info. welcome and nice to meet you.

have a good night all

richard

[tmartha]

Aha, yes, the dosage - mine is 1 mg daily - bozzly, what is yours?

[condor]

May I get someone to elaborate on the benefits of Folic Acid please.
I have never heard of this one before.

Thanx
Steve

[changzongli]

MTX inhibits synthesis of folic acid, which is required for synthesis of nucleic acid. This is how it works in chemotherapy - inhibit overgrowth of (cancer )cells. It causes the side effects also.

It mainly reduces the chance of liver toxicity.

In the mean time, it is said to reduce the effect of MTX also - may make you to require a higher dose of MTX, according to some research. But I think most experts agree that the benefits of folic acid (making more people to be able to tolerate the side effects) outweight this reduction in effect.

[JesseLou]

Folic acid is also required by the central nervous system and for the production of blood cells. If you were taking MTX as chemotherapy, you would want the effect of blocking folic acid absorption, because you would be trying to kill tumor growth. In the case of psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis, you only want the immune suppressant effect, so you need to replace the folic acid that is not being absorbed from your regular diet.

I take 1 folgard tablet every day - this is a prescription that contains a lot of folic acid plus B vitamins. I got it from my rheumy.

[condor]

Thanks changzongli and JesseLou, for elaborating of folic acid.
I am learning so much from this forum-This is great!

Steve