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Rheumatoid arthritis: How do you cope day to day?
Autoimmune Diseases | Last Active: Apr 18 6:41am | Replies (92)Comment receiving replies
@leanne004 I sympathize with all you're going through. It's a pretty wild ride. In my experience, it does take a rheumatologist, and a good one at that, to diagnose. One doctor, an orthopedic surgeon I was seeing about getting a shoulder replacement, thought I had a ganglion cyst on my wrist. He didn't even notice that my entire hand was swollen like a baseball glove, I later found that's a classic sign of psoriatic arthritis. (I ended up choosing a different surgeon, haha). The rheumatologist recognized it just by looking. It's so good to have a diagnosis and to know what you're dealing with. I do hope you find the answers you need. Kind regards, LL
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@llmartin I can sympathize! I’ve had rheumatoid arthritis for 30 years. Over the last three years, I have developed an erosive osteoarthritis, something that can be diagnosed definitively with a simple hand x-ray . But my previous rheumatologist missed this diagnosis. While under his care, I “failed” on about three RA biologics, because RA meds do not treat erosive osteoarthritis.
I now wonder if the drugs I “failed” on might be brought back into play for my preexisting RA. There are only so many RA drugs out there. And I’ve been at this game 30 years so I’ve run through a few.
Honestly, I think the underlying problem was the guy was not particularly good at listening to his patients. Nose in the labs kind of guy. Mistrustful of what patient say. If I had had more options, I would’ve run.
We so deserve rheumatologists that listen to us carefully and take what we are saying seriously. That is worth 1000 lab results. And, In my experience, these qualities are hard to find.
The good news is my new rheumatologist fits the bill. And, you can bet I’ll hang onto my relationship with her. I feel blessed.