OT/Chartreux or Others with Sjogrens

I looked around on the Sjogren's group but found it kind of like the RA group... I am most comfortable here! When I first joined the only thing I knew for sure was that I had chronic pain in my lower back and I just clicked with the group here....so when I can stay in this group....I try to! I am going to the rheumy tomorrow....thank goodness....and I am hoping to get some more answers, but I have some new stuff going on and just had a few questions. When I got my RA test, they said it was really high and they suspected that there were other auto immune diseases going on along with the RA. One of the ones they mentioned as a possibility was Sjogren's. I did not think to much of it, because I figured the tests they were going to do tomorrow would give me some more answers, but I have had some weird stuff going on lately....one of the worst is, I am losing my sense of taste!!! When I put "loss of taste" as a search in google.....Sjogren's came up. Besides my loss of taste, my mouth always seems dry and my eyes burn, itch and are always red anymore! Also, the other night when I blew my nose, it was bloody and my skin is very dry....really bad on my face....it has even started breaking out because of it! I have never REALLY had a problem with my face breaking out! I mean a pimple here and there....but I woke up with 5 of them....are you kidding me? I am 44 years old...not a teenager!! So this is my new stuff going on....does it sound like Sjogren's? I just wondered if all these things together make it worth mentioning to the rheumy? I have always had pretty dry skin and because I smoke, my mouth gets pretty dry...but it seems pretty extreme right now! Anyway....just thought I would ask and I appreciate any input I get!! Take care everyone!

Hugs,
Beckey

First thing that has me concerned is that you have mentioned itchy, red, burning eye and those
are very strong indicators for a allergy, maybe look into getting allergy testing done, the
weather has been weird this year and allergies are kicked up. and
the other things could be sjogren's, but your doctor would have to decide that, a lot of
the testing for sjogrens is painful and you'll need to ask yourself if you really want to go thru
it. If the lip biopsy is not done correctly you could get mixed results like mine, my ent took
the lip biopsy (It's aweful and painful) and my ent said it was inflamed and the labs said it wasn't
inflamed enough, but my rheumy agreed with the ent in it being sjogrens, my eye's get so dry
I'm now on restasis 3x a day with replacement of eye plugs every 5 months (and these plugs
are supposed to last for a year), the dry mouth really doesn't bother me so much...
try benadryl 1 tsp. to see if that helps with the itchy red eye's, but it will also dry
your mouth out...Mikel is right in that many many pain meds can cause dry mouth..
If your bloodwork does not come back positive for sjgrens then usually a lip biopsy can be done,
but it's painful and hard to eat and you'll have to rinse with hydrogen perxoid (sp?) and it's like with ms
you might test positive yet not have any symptoms or you might have symptoms (like me) and
have false negatives, especially if your in the early stages of sjogrens..Please keep us up to date on how
your doing...
I'm not feeling to good lately, have a mild fever and been coughing again and I'm hopeing it's not going into pneumonia again...
so I might drop by to read posts...for awhile...