Welcome, Schmidt!

[Guest guest]

Hello, , and welcome! Sorry about your RA diagnosis and other

problems, but I'm glad you found your way here.

It's wonderful that you have so much flexibility with your job. Lucky

you!

Others have already mentioned strategies used for dealing with the

methotrexate (MTX) side-effects: add folic acid, change to the

injectable form, take it at night with food in your stomach. Your doctor

also has the option to decrease the dose. I would discuss your

MTX-induced nausea with your physician.

The most current and complete information about RA is on the Internet.

Of course, you can't believe everything you read in cyberspace, but

there is solid, up-to-date information available from reliable sites. I

think our group owner and lead moderator, a, sent you the link to

her site (and it appears at the bottom of every post). She has assembled

quite a long list of good links!

There are some decent RA books out there, but, on the whole, it is a

fairly unsatisfying collection. I can't recommend one book designed for

RA patients that has it all. One of the most recent RA books,

" Conquering Rheumatoid Arthritis: the Latest Breakthroughs and

Treatments " by F. Lee, Ph.D. (Prometheus Books, 2001) may be a

little too technical for some tastes since it focuses on RA pathogenesis

and treatments, but I think it is very good if that's the aspect of RA

that you're interested in. The author is a biologist and researcher and

has had an RA diagnosis since 1955.

Hope you like it here,

[ ] New Member

> Hi! I'm new here, and new to RA too. I was diagnosed about a month

ago.

> I'm 30 years old, a graduate student and I work full-time. I'm a

program

> analyst for a consulting company - luckily they've been really great

about

> all of this. We are contracted to support CDCs AIDS research, so most

of

> what I do involves reviewing data from sites throughout the country,

meaning

> that my schedule can be easily flexed. This has been an absolute

> life-saver.

>

> I've been symptomatic for about a year. However, diagnosis was

complicated

> by the fact that I had a lot of other undiagnosed and uncontrolled

problems.

> I've known that I have Hashimoto's thyroiditis for several years,

but when

> I started to have problems, my thyroid levels were a little out of

whack. I

> had tons of tests, but it wasn't until a month ago that I was given

any

> diagnoses. Then I was told that I have pernicious anemia (B12

deficiency),

> psoriasis, and RA. The RA diagnosis came as a complete surprise.

>

> At this point, I'm taking prednisone and methotrexate for the RA. I

just

> took my second dose of Methotrexate on Tuesday - does anyone have any

hints

> for dealing with the nausea? I felt like I was going to throw up for

24

> hours after taking the pills. Today, I feel a little better, just

really

> tired.

>

> I ordered a few books about RA, and I'm looking for whatever

information or

> advice is available. If anyone has any hints or suggestions, or knows

of

> any good resource materials, that would be great. I'm a little

overwhelmed

> right now and I thought it would be nice to hear from some people who

are

> already dealing with RA.

>

> Thanks -