Hey Everyone, I usually post on the Lupus board because that was the direction my docs were pointing me for a long time. I'll give you my story, so bear with me if this gets a little long. It all started about
four years ago with a sudden outbreak of severe hives and I mean really severe. I had to take two benedryl just to sleep at night. Huge red welts about
8-10 inches long at the largest all over my body, sometimes pressure induced, sometimes not. Itchy, painful, hot and all the way to the bone. Had allergy testing, nothing. Had auto immune panel, Positive, speckled ANA 1:640 titer, Positve RF(don't remember original number, but it always been positve). Was put and claritin and zantac, helped some. Then I got pregnant and lost the baby very quickly. Ayear later I was pregnant again and was able by the Grace of God to carry him to a strong , healthy full-term. During my preggy time, started to develope joint pain and swelling in my hands. We had no insurance and the clinic doctor suggested that this was the start of it all and I need to see a Rheum as soon as the baby was born and that it was probably SLE. This was 2007. At my first Rheumy visit, I was put on plaquenil and pred. At the time, was nursing so my options were slim. I didn't notice the affects of the pred at first because I would clean the house all day and do all the things I hadn't been able to do for so long and then call the Rheumy and tell him how crappy I felt at 30 mgs of pred.LOL my bad. Anyway, this whole misunderstanding was his fault for not explaining how wired and jittery the pred would make me and mine for not seeing what I was doing to myself. Hell, I cleaned a whole carpet with a spot cleaning machine. So this doctor went on the whole Fibro path, I had none of the pressure points, but I did have sun sensitivity, sore in my nose and mouth, rah on my face, joint pain in my hands and feet requiring ever increasing doses of pain meds(I'm allergic to ALL NSAID's), migraines, fatigue like the first day of a flu, trouble concentrating and two young boys to try to keep up with. I tried to find another Rheumy and had to find another PCP because my former pCP thought I was drug seeking. I now have a great PCP and he ran some test that were suggested by the Lab on labwork run by the first Rheumy nearly 3 years ago. All of the Sjogren's markers were very positive. I have very mild dry eyes, very mild dry nose, vaginal dryness, dry skin etc all of which are fairly easy to maintain. My worst issues are the migraines, sometimes 2-3 times a week, the fatigue, and joint pain is still the worst. I see a pain mgmt specialist and am taking way too much pain medicine (ER Morphine and Lortabs) but what can I do since I can't take NSAID's and without anything I can barely move? I started MTX about
a month and a half ago and although I do feel somewhat better, it isn't enoug to feel like I can start to taper off any of the pain meds or the 5mg of pred I take everyday. I'm going to a new Rheumy at the Emory clinic in Atlanta, but not until July 1st. I hoping for some answers, but I'm realsitic as to the way this diagnostic process goes. I guess my question is this: Could all of this really be attributed to just Sjorgren's alone, or is it more likely that I probably have a Lupus or RA overlap? Just wanted some input. Thanks to you all.
P.S. Please excuse any typing or spelling errors, I thinkl that's the most typing I've done in one sitting in years.