RA study

[Guest guest]

Not to change the subject from my OT post about OT posts but....

As most of you know my mom has severe RA and I am recently diagnosed

(although it's been more than a year, I wonder how long I can say

that?). She called tonight because she talked to someone near here

in Colorado who is doing a study on the RA gene. They are about to

make the study a national one and if we were accepted they would

study my mom (has RA), her sister (no RA), me (have RA), my sister

(no RA), her cousin (has RA) and her (the cousin's) sister (no RA).

I guess they are looking at families and looking for people with the

RA gene that have no RA, and I'm assuming family members have the

greatest chance of also having the gene. The study is hoping to

help with early diagnosis.

I posted about this a long time ago, but all of us, my mom, her

cousin and myself had a combination of extreme job/family stress and

illness right before the onset of RA. We were all in our 30's when

we got RA. My mom also recently observed that all three of us with

RA were very skinny and very very finicky eaters when we were little

girls (some of you may remember the poll I posted about this). My

mom thinks this is a big deal and that my niece is more at risk

because she is the same as us (skinny and finicky). None of the

girls in my family (aunts, cousins, second cousins) that were normal

eaters and normal weight have developed RA. Who knows if that has

anything to do with it, but it would be interesting to know if any

of our sister's have the RA gene.

Jennie