Precautions to Take With Biologics
Hide Video Transcript
Video Transcript
[MUSIC PLAYING]
With biologics, we really don't expect that to affect the blood pressure. But patients with inflammatory diseases are at a higher risk for having heart disease and may have a higher incidence of hypertension. So it's important to control the blood pressure.
With biologics, many of them are subcutaneous, so the patient injects themselves. Others are intravenous. So there can be injection-site reactions. Occasionally, a patient will have a little nausea or a headache after a dose of a biologic, but that's only, say, for a day.
So with biologics, we really don't have to worry about hot or cold. But you do need to worry about the amount of sun that you get. And we recommend and dermatologists certainly recommend that you use sunscreen because with these biologics, you can have an increased risk of nonmelanoma skin cancers.
With the biologics, there's really no drowsiness or loss of ability to do your normal tasks. So you can drive or operate machinery. No problem.
So with biologics or the conventional medicines, if you have an infection, you might want to miss a few days of work. But basically, the biologics are very well tolerated. So you really don't need to change your work.
KRISTINE M. LOHR
We like to see the patients and talk with them and see what's going on, find out about if they've got infections. And there are lab tests that we order routinely for some of them. And some of them, a lipid panel. The rheumatologists know how to handle these diseases. And they'll evaluate the disease activity and recommend the treatment regimen for the patient. With biologics, we really don't expect that to affect the blood pressure. But patients with inflammatory diseases are at a higher risk for having heart disease and may have a higher incidence of hypertension. So it's important to control the blood pressure.
With biologics, many of them are subcutaneous, so the patient injects themselves. Others are intravenous. So there can be injection-site reactions. Occasionally, a patient will have a little nausea or a headache after a dose of a biologic, but that's only, say, for a day.
So with biologics, we really don't have to worry about hot or cold. But you do need to worry about the amount of sun that you get. And we recommend and dermatologists certainly recommend that you use sunscreen because with these biologics, you can have an increased risk of nonmelanoma skin cancers.
With the biologics, there's really no drowsiness or loss of ability to do your normal tasks. So you can drive or operate machinery. No problem.
So with biologics or the conventional medicines, if you have an infection, you might want to miss a few days of work. But basically, the biologics are very well tolerated. So you really don't need to change your work.
