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[Guest guest]

Hi everyone, I'm new to the group. My name is Anne; I'm a 58 year old mom and

grandma. I first heard of Stills on an episode of Mystery Diagnosis on Discovery

Health. It featured a woman with everyone of my symptoms, and I kept telling the

tv set, " you have lupus, I know it " , because I have it, and you have the same

symptoms. I was stunned when it was revealed to be Stills disease. I'd never

heard of it, so of course I had to look it up to check out symptoms peculiar to

Stills vs SLE. Needless to say, I was surprised to learn I've had more of the

symptoms of Stills than SLE. The spiking fevers symptom convinced me. My mom

told me I'd get sky high fevers that came out of nowhere, made me delerious, and

left just as suddenly. I've hadspiking fevers many times during my life.

I was given the SLE diagnosis in 1966 , at age 17, when I was hospitalized

with a bout of pericarditis and a fever of 104-106 for almost a month. Nothing

worked, until the doctors tried prednisone and chloroquine as a last resort. It

worked very quickly, and thus I was given the SLE diagnosis. I've had several

blood workups for lupus and have always tested negative. Some docs don't believe

I ever had lupus, some think I'm a hypochondriac, and believe me, I was

beginning to think they might be right; until I joined this group and began

reading your posts. To know there are people out there with the same problems as

I makes me feel there might be hope, after all. I can relate to most of the

symptoms I read about, these are the symptoms that doctors have told me are " in

my head " or just my nerves, for most of my adult life.

I can't fault the doctors for not being able to pinpoint my problems because I

also have other medical problems that might overlap with the SLE/Stills

symptoms. In 1964 I was in an auto accident and suffered a broken neck; a

partial transection of C-6 & C-7 with dislocation. The bones were crushed, and

severed the nerves on the right of my neck, in addition to the spinal being

partially severed. I wasn't expected to live through the night, but I did. My

mother was told I'd be paralyzed from the neck down if I lived. Anyway, to make

a long story short, she allowed the docs to perform experimental surgery on me

(no guarantees and I might die), and it worked.

So you can see why the docs can't tell if my pain and stiffness is from the

spinal cord injury or the SLE or whatever I have. But, I think I've found my

answer while reading your posts. Thank you Stills group!

Anne

btw, I've enjoyed your " political " discussion.

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