I had a visit with a rhemy on the thirty first of July for the first time. I'll give the short story LOL...
about two months ago went to my doctor because of a swollen right eye and bad whelp type rash all over both arms. He ran alot of blood test and came back with a postive ANA. I have had extreme fatigue, all joints in both wrists, both ankles, both elbows, both knees, and every bone in my foot inflamed. They are still inflamed after steriod treatments. I have major pain some days and some days it's not as bad. Big time stiffiness for few hours in the mornings, headaches, a know a swollen tear duct in right eye. I am only on Tramadol at the moment. At first it helped the pain alot but now it just takes the edge off.
Anyways, my doctor sent me to a dermatologist to see about the whelp rashish stuff on arms. He told me to stay out of the sun because I had been going to the tanning bed and he felt the sun could make it worse if it were lupus. I have a faint butterfly type rash on face but nothing really alarming. The dermatologist told me a classic text book case of sle. He was certain. Said he could have gave me diagnosis long time ago blah blah blah... Two weeks later I go back to get stitches out and he said results show it was not lupus it was granuloma annular. He said no cure, its autoimmune similar but not related to sle. He said I still had lupus in his opinion. Okay now to the rhemy appointment. He did all the little excerises and ask all the questions. Did alot of blood work and said he would call in a few weeks. He said he was leaning more toward mixed connective tissue than sle. Anyways after ten days I hadn't heard anything so I called this morning. The nurse said that the ana screening tool they use for Lupus has came back positive twice but the antinuclear or whatever tests show negative. My vitamin D level is good. My white blood count is low. She said usually it's elevated in lupus and other connective tissue disease. So for the time being they will need to keep checking blood reguarly because even though some healthy people can have positive ana also some people can have negative antinuclear if the disease has just began. Meaning the disease hasn't progressed enough to show up in blood tests. So I am still in the same place I started. In my opinion and I'm not a doctor I just simply have rhem. arthritis and not lupus. I feel a bit down that I still don't know what is making me have all this pain and making me on some days unable to walk. She said come in to see the doctor on September the 9th. I am thirty four and this inflamamtion started back in June. She said alot of times it takes a while for the disease to progress enough to put a diagnosis on it. I think this is all so crazy though. I think it's sad I have to sit back and wait for damage to be done to the body in some way to know something. It's like them saying wait until your joints start to wear away and then we will give treatment but at the same time I understand i can't just take meds that I could end up taking for no reason. When I go back in September I hope this time he elaborates more. He didn't give me a chance to tell him about my symptoms. When I got there I handed the nurse the whole stack of papers they had me feel out but he didn't even look at them he just looked at the referrel. I will tell him this time around though. I just didn't want it to seem like I knew more than him LOL. But some days my blood veins in legs and feet are huge and swollen. He wouldn't even look at the knot in my eye or anything... This time I am going to tell him I want him to consider these things to see if it can help. thanks for listening please share opinons.