Hello Everyone

[Guest guest]

I'm just catching up on my emails and just wanted to pop in to say hello. Its almost 7 weeks since I had my implants taken out. My color is better, my attitude is incredible, and my energy is increasing by the day. I still have alot of the symptoms I had before the explant but not nearly as strong or debilitating. I am functioning quite well now. I have a long ways to go as I strongly feel I have a bacteria overgrowth in my body and will continue working on correcting that but at least I'm seeing small improvements.

Jackie

[Guest guest]

Welcome to the group ,

Most of us here not only have RA, but other forms of auto-immune diseases as well. I myself was diagnosed with RA at the early age of 13. I am now 40. After having my second son I had the flare from hell and have been since diagnosed with OA, fibromyalgia,"mild" lupus,reynauds, tmj & costochondritis/pleurisy. Since Jan. I have been going to 3 different drs. every other week because I developed a reoccuring bacterial infection that none of them can find the cause of. Friday I am once again going to see a new dr, a hematologist, becuase one of the others now thinks that maybe what I have is mixed connective tissue disease! I have run the gamet on meds also, having failed methotrexate & enbrel. I was due to start kineret when the infections started, so I'm currently on only ultracet & bextra for pain & inflammation. They wont start me on anything new until they can all figure out whats going on. Boy, I sure wish I knew what was going on too! Sorry to go on & on.

What I'm trying to say is, yes you do sound like most of us with RA becuase it is an auto-immune disease that really screws up a person. Make sure they have run the test to rule out any other immune diseases too.

Good Luck & God Bless, Barbara

bullysmom_2002 <bullysmom_2002@...> wrote: Hi Everyone,I've just found your site today. I've belong to a group for spondylarthropy and paid little attention to the fact I had RA for the past three years, as I thought the spondylarthropy was more devastating. From reading some of the posts here, I think the RA is probably causing more of my life changing problems than anything else.For five years, I was told I had fybromyalgia. Then three years ago, I was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthristis, osteoprosis and undifferentiated spondylarthropy. Now, as of last week, the diagnosis has changed to Rheumatoid Arthritis, Osteoprosis, Degenerative Disc Disease, Sacroilitis and "possible" spondylarthropy. My pain has always been throughout my body, but the worst of it is in my spine, hands and legs (from pinched nerves in my spine I think). I have no tissue left between the joints in my hands and ankles and my spine is rapidly losing the support between the vertebrae. I have a large lump in my neck where my neck is starting to hump over from the degeneration. Now, my hips have also become involved where I have a hard time sitting or standing or walking or pretty much doing anything.What didn't fit with most people with spondylarthropy was all the other immune system problems that I face. I catch every virus in the country, have a hard time recovering from infections, and have strange reactions to most drugs.The Rheumatologist has tried methotrax and plaquenil and I just suffered miserably while on them - like a non-stop flu bug. I've suffered from three occurances of a rare form of cancer and the oncologist believes it's due to my immune system being defective. Does this sound like most people with RA? Or should my doctor be looking for another immune disorder as the cause of all my difficulties?P.S. It's nice to find you all here. Thank you to whoever started the group.