Now I'm curious about how widely it's used. I know (quite well) the pharmacist at the Walmart, so I'm going ask next time I'm in there, roughly how many patients take it just for that store. It may not be as many a I would think.

The incidents (and severity) of side-effects seems lower overall with plaquenil vs any of the immune suppressants. Just the huge risk of infection with immune suppression would top the list. I literally came very close to death from an infection (an abdominal wall hematoma) while on Cellcept. There are also some other hefty side-effects with some of these cancer drugs and immune suppressors used for AI disease. Plaquenil has always been describe by the doctor as low-man on the totem pole.

If it can be tolerated (nausea topping the list of complaints), it really does help with some of the AI disease symptoms. But as for IdiopathicPN...based upon what she said happened (even though it's unknown whether it was the plaquenil), I think it would be too risky to try...IMHO