New Member Introduction

[Guest guest]

Hello all

 

My name is . My birthday is Sept. 7 1969.  If you don't want to do

the math I am 38.  I live near Houston, TX.  I am married with one daughter and

a Crazy bull terrier ( a Spud McKenzie dog ).

 

I was officially diagnosed with AOSD on August 4, 2008, but have had symptoms

for about 6 years.  In a way I am lucky.  For the first 5years my only symptoms

were mainly the rash, sometimes fevers, and an occasional sore throat that would

go away the next day.  I have only been experiencing joint pains for about a

year now.  They have just recently been getting bad, usually my wrists and

ankles.  My first pcp kept telling me that I was allergic to something and the

fever was just a low grade infection.  Take some Advil for the fever and if it

doesn't go away to come back..  After a little while of this I knew it was time

to find a doctor that cared.

 

I found a doctor that seemed to want to help last year.  He ran some blood work

and it came back normal except for an elevated wbc and lymphocytes.  Thought I

might have a UTI and gave me some antibiotics.  The fever went away, but we all

know that it went away on its own not the antibiotics.  Last June I had fever

for about 4 weeks and it really seemed to drain me.  The rash was bad also.  So

my Dr. put me in the hospital for testing.  Everything came back normal except

for high WBC and Sed rate.  But as fate would have it I ran into a doctor in the

elevator while on my way for a chest x-ray.  He asked me " You look too healthy

to be in the hospital.  Why are you here? "   So I told him my symptoms and he

told me to look up Still's disease and said he was a RD on his way out of the

elevator.  After my first round of bloodwork came back showing inflammation, I

ended up with a consult with the same doctor I met in the elevator.  He ordered

some

more blood work and told me to see him at his office.  He said it looked like

AOSD but he wanted to rule out some other things.  After the blood work came

back he said there was no dought that it was Still's.  I don't remember what all

the levels were but I think the serum ferritin level was 6750.

 

So now I am taking 20mg of pred (10 didn't do anything really).  He said would

be short term.  12.5 mg of Methotrexate and folic acid.  The funny thing is, I

found out on a Monday and I was scheduled to have a wisdom tooth removed on that

Friday so I didn't start my pred until after a had the tooth removed.  They gave

me an I V sedation to extract the tooth that morning.  That day I felt better

than I had in a long time.  I didn't even have the rash.  No brain fog or

nothing.  Even with the pain from the tooth I felt great that whole day.

 

Hope that wasn't too long.