Stelara and Other Immunosuppressants

[thenicelady]

Hi all,

I am reaching the end of my prerequisites and will be applying to nursing programs this coming fall. I am currently on Stelara for psoriasis. This is the only thing that has provided relief in 17 years of having the disease (I am 30). My dermatologist has informed me that I cannot be on Stelara while working in healthcare. I can understand the logic here--Stelara is designed to suppress the immune system, and in theory makes one more susceptible to infection. The thing is, I can't find any information about this whatsoever other than what my derm has told me. I have been using this drug for over a year and in fact have had increased resistance to UTIs (used to get them every other month) and general illnesses including respiratory infections (used to get them whenever the seasons changed).

I am wondering if anyone on this board has had to discontinue Stelara in order to enter healthcare, or been denied a Stelara rx as a healthcare pro. If so, how did you cope? If you are patient facing and are prescribed an immunosuppressant, was this issue brought up at any point?

I am pretty concerned about finding an alternative, but having to discontinue Stelara will not prevent me from entering the nursing field.

Thanks.

[LessValuableNinja]

The increased resistance, as you put it, may be related to increased urethral and/or bladder inflammation, which is associated with various autoimmune disorders, including psoriasis.

You can be a nurse while on immune suppressants.

Have you been asked to provide this information to your nursing school?

[LessValuableNinja]

May be related to suppression of immune response normally leading to...

Realized my previous statement was confusing.

[thenicelady]

My urologist performed a cystoscopy and apparently the inflammation I was dealing with before was almost totally gone. He did show me a tiny kidney stone on one of my scans and mentioned that people with psoriasis can be more likely to get kidney stones, which I found really interesting. My insurance would love to believe that this is just an unsightly skin condition, lol.

ANYWAY. Thank you for this response. No, I have not been asked by nursing program yet but when I am screened I imagine they will ask, and if I am going to be barred from clinicals for this I want to know ASAP so I can get off it and find a different treatment.

[Arsinoe]

This is not true. Perhaps your dermatologist may prefer not to prescribe Stelara to healthcare workers-however it is not contraindicated from the pharmaceutical company itself. My dermatologist knows I'm a nurse and didn't think twice about putting me on it when I requested it.

[poppycat, ADN, BSN]

I take a biologic for rheumatoid arthritis & have never been told I can't work as a nurse.

[TheCommuter, BSN, RN]

Moved to the Nursing & Patient Medications forum for more replies.