Drugs for autoimmune diseases like those from which Eagles’ founder Glenn Frey suffered do indeed cause serious side effects. But such powerful medications are needed to fight such devastating ailments, a top doctor says.

“Rheumatoid arthritis is a serious disease that can lead to disfigurement. It can also affect the lungs, the blood vessels, and other organs,” Dr. Rochella Ostrowski tells Newsmax Health.

Frey died Monday from complications of rheumatoid arthritis, ulcerative colitis, and pneumonia. His manager, Irving Azoff, blamed the legendary musician's death in part on drugs he was taking.

"Drugs used to treat autoimmune diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis and ulcerative colitis, alleviate symptoms and they also help fight the disease process which causes damage to the body. But they also leave patients vulnerable to infections such as pneumonia," says Dr. Ostrowski, a rheumatologist at Loyola University School of Medicine.

The possibility this may have happened to Frey occurred to Dr. Ostrowski when she learned of his death, just as such a scenario did a few years ago when she learned of comedian Bernie Mac's passing.

“Bernie Mac died of pneumonia. He had sarcoidosis, which is also an autoimmune inflammatory disease and is treated with the same types of drugs,” notes Dr. Ostrowski.

Doctors don’t like to use drugs that suppress the immune system because it fights off infections that can lead to ailments like pneumonia.  But extreme measures are necessarily in the face of the damage that these inflammatory diseases can do,  she notes.

“Milder drugs can treat symptoms but they do nothing to halt the disease process, but these newer, more powerful diseases do," says Dr. Ostrowski. Such drugs include methotrexate (Trexall), adalimumab (Humira) and entanercept (Embrel).

But patients taking these drugs need to work closely with their doctors to mitigate their side effects. One way is to limit exposure to people with infectious diseases to avoid catching infections. She also has her patients discontinue the drugs if they are on antibiotics, she says.

Although patients are often told to stay on these drugs indefinitely, in some cases she’s found that she can reduce the dosage if the patient is doing well. 

“Humira is supposed to be used twice a month but, if a  patient is doing really well, I’ll have them start spacing it out. If they remain stable, without flare-ups, they can continue that way,” she notes.

In all the patients that Dr. Ostrowski has treated, she recalls only two that suffered serious  medication side effects.

"For every Glenn Frey, I've had 50 to 100 patients whose lives have changed for the better and they are doing well," she said.