New and Tired of being sick and tired.

Hello Angie,

Sorry for your health problems recent months. Relax it's not the end. For any disease there is an anti-disease - respectively "cure".

Yes Angie mantioned by you symptoms sounds absolutely familiar to me. First I want to tell you -  get away from docs who talks like that - "But was told that in some cases RA can start in the back" because they approaches to the diagnosis with prejudice wich often results in wrong diagnosis which results in wrong treatment and this is the bigest evil. RA besides it has speciffic exams and pattern of symptoms it is also a diagnosis of exclusions. *Universally* all the autoimmune diseases are diagnoses of exclusions which will say that anything else should be rulled out and after months, even years of suffering with all other possible diagnoses excluded, then eventually a diagnosis of autoimmune disease should be established and treated as it should b e.

Back pain is uncommon in RA. RA primary symptoms are usually swelling of fingers and large joints but not back. Pay attention, I'm stressing on the word "swelling".

My condition was very similar to yours. Now I'm diagnosed with reiter's syndrome, and my arthritis is almost unnoticable now. knock knock knock. I had the knee weakness, had the nubmness during sleep of the parts of the body which I slept on. Have the low-grade fever (still have it). I had overlooked uro-genital infection for months and may be for years before my first extra-genital symptoms appeared. The infection was cured for 2 weeks with antibiotics and the things started slowly to get better.

Do you have relatives with RA or ankylosing spondylitis or relatives just suffering from *unexplained* back aches sometimes? Have you been tested for lyme disease? Have you been noticing a thick bite or some rashes on you? Where do you live? How old are you? Have you had new sexual partner recently or sporadic sexual intercourses without condom? Do you have aches in the tendons (you can define tendon pain as pain not comming directly inside of the joint but a tender spots around the joint.)?

P.S. I saw that you had 'unexplained' kidney pains. I've had that ever since I had my gallbladder removed some two years ago. I've gone in to see if I had kidney infections, only to be told I had none. And yes, at first I was treated for lyme believe it or not. The blood work however said I didn't have it.

For my gallbladder; I had symtoms for almost 12 years. Classic gallbladder symptoms. Went to 4 different doctors all said i was having muscle spasms!! Gave me some heavy muscle relaxers and sent me away. We moved here to TN 2 years ago, then I started having the 'symptoms' almost everyday. Finally found a doc here who didn't even hardly examine me..Just listened to my symptoms and said you have gallbladder disease. The next day I was jaundice. They made me go to the hospital, stuck me on antibiotics, and did some testing. I had 8 gallstones the size of bb's. That night they took out my gallbladder. And never was so happy they did. That pain was horrible.

I'm just scared they are going to say 'well, we don't know whats wrong with you..good luck, see ya later' and let me suffer through this. I've actually gotten a little bit better over the course of the last month.

hi Angie,

so, so sorry for what you're going through.  for so many, myself included, it took years & years and years before a proper diagnoses.  and what's worse? when they run all nasty diseases past ya! don't let it drive you crazy. and just the same....being left with NO ANSWER or explanation to what's going on is just as worse, even more.  especially when you know something's wrong, you aren't the way you once were, and it's not in your head.  it's puzzling!  not only to you...but to the physicians as well.  no doctor likes a difficult, unclear case.  it's easy to diagnose & treat a text book case of anything...but so many times that is just NOT the case.

i'll give a little explanation of autoimmune disease processes which might be easier to grasp.

true there is no definitive blood test to diagnose an autoimmune disease; but docs look at your CRP, ANA, SedRate, Rheumatoid factor, and various IgGs IgMs etc....also, muscle enzymes too.  these help build a map to guide them on what to do next.

many times, if a person responds to an immunomodulator like Imuran, Plaquenil or some steroid...that also serves as a BIG CLUE that an autoimmune disease is present!  if a person responds to Enbrel or Humira?...the docs actuallu use medication response as a way of diagnosing.  cool eh?

 

safe to say, the majority of autoimmune diseases act similarly.  they are complex, and not easily understood (whether they are viral mediated or bacterial triggered or what!) and they do or could effect the entire body.

for some reason not fully understood, the immune system which normally defends the body against pathogens, mistakenly starts to attack your bodies NORMAL cells & tissues! these include the lining of the joints & connective tissues (ligaments & tendons...even veins too) some autoimmune diseases also effect the tissues of the liver, heart & lungs and skin.

once triggered....tissue cells can grow abnormally, causing inflammation & swelling & pain.

i do hope this helped. or at least provided some clarity.

my best advise is to: keep regularly scheduled doc appts, find a good rheumatologist, a consult with an infectious disease doc, have a good primary doc too! and keep all bloodwork appts.

sometimes it might takes months for values to manifest in bloodwork, and they may be inconsistent too....but no Dr. will make a diagnoses based on just one thing....they look at labs, tests, physical findings, and what you tell them about how you feel effects your daily life.

this takes time, i'm sorry to say.  but you've got a lot of support here! you hang in there!

take good care.  erin