Newbie - ish (Just saying "Hi")

Hey,

I usually post on the Panic board but I hope you guys don't mind me popping across. I've been a lurker here for a looong time!

I have RA. I was diagnosed in November 2006 but my symptoms started in January '06. I'm just coming up to my 21st birthday. My RA affects my fingers, hands, wrists, elbows, knees and feet. I've also had/have carpal tunnel in my left wrist, tendonitis in my achilles tendon, bursitis in my right hip and costochronditis. Over the last few years I've been on MTX, sulfasalazine, leflunomide and plaquenil.

The sulfa didn't do anything, the leflunomide caused unidentified bleeding and I developed a cough on MTX the first time around. As my disease was out of control for a while I have damage in my wrists.

I'm currently taking Humira, MTX, Plaquenil and prednisolone as my cocktail of choice and they have put me into a drug induced clinical remission.

Otherwise, I'm a British student of English Literature about to enter my final year at university. It's good to meet you all!

Hi Ginny!

Part of my diagnosis was helped big time by my bloods. I have never shown any inflammation markers outside of 'normal' ranges, even when I've been so swollen, red and fevered my doctors ahve all remarked on it. Fortunately I am seropositve. The RD that diagnosed me told me that if it wasn't for my RF being posistive and my physical presentation (he found swelling in places I didn't know could swell!) he would never have diagnosed RA.

Although I was first ill in January '06, we thought it was a virus and it was only in hindsight that we realised it was probably my RA starting. It was the week of my first round of A-level exams. The weekend prior I slept for 72 hours. Throughout that week whenever I wasn't in an exam I was asleep. I even fell asleep in my Psychology exam! After that I never felt quite right. I would run low grade fevers for 3 days at a time, with no other symptoms. My knees started to swell, which my GP and I put down to being a recurrance of chrondomalacia despite the fact I was a bit old for it at 18. In July I got pins and needles in my hands which never disappeared. In September my hands started to swell and pain kicked in. I started my first year at uni., saw my new GP and he told me without even touching my hands that I had some sort of inflammatory arthritis. Within 4 weeks I'd seen an RD, was taking 20mg steroids, anti-inflammatories, painkillers and MTX.

I really hope you get a diagnosis soon. Remember that blood results aren't everything and sometimes you can spot small trends yourself. Whne my RA is out of control or I'm flaring my haemoglobin levels drop. They are more reliable than my ESR or CRP. The highest my ESR has ever been is 18, my CRP 8. For me, both those numbers were really high but in lab ranges they are considered 'normal'.

What dose of pred are you on? The pred should be helping the inflammation. I've been on it now since before I was formally diagnosed. The big test of seeing how stable my med induced remission is will be seeing if we can reduce the pred in 6 months time.

Pain management: big question. I cope by taking codeine at different strengths depending on how bad things are, anti-inflams when I'm swollen and by making liberal use of heat and ice. Ice when swollen, heat when painful, or alternating the two. In my flat at uni it is considered quite normal to find me in the kitchen with frozen peas on my knees and hot rice socks round my wrists!

I appear to have waffled a fair bit! Good luck and I hope to continue chatting with you.

Scat.