Cold/virus update and Humira

[Guest guest]

Last night I started feeling really bad. I was coughing until it hurt and I

felt stuff rubbing and gurgling in my chest. So today I made an appnt to

see my doc.

This is what he found. I did indeed have some sort of viral illness...which

as passed. Now the terrible cough is caused by a post viral lung syndrome.

This is when your body's immune system kicks in to fight the virus but

forgets to turn off after the virus is gone. So my body was dumping lots of

fluid

and white blood cells into my lungs to try and fight something that is not

there. The doc said if you could look at the surface of my lungs they would

look like that have a bad sun burn rash. This left untreated can continue for

12 weeks or more until my immune system gets the hint to stop!

So the treatment is like a person with asthma. He gave me a shot of

kenalog, advair discus for the next two weeks, tessalon perles for cough,

double my

dose of claritin for allergies.

He said the rest of my problems was plain ole texas allergies.

I asked him if he felt my RA had any hand in this. He statement was he has

seen this in plenty of people that do not have auto-immune disease but in my

case yes my RA has an affect. I asked him if I should have NOT stopped my

Humira and his response was that he was not familiar with the med to make a

determination on that one.

So this is the way I see it. If my immune system was under good control I

probably would not have this....or at least it would not be this bad. So I

will try to call my rheummy tomorrow to see if I can start my Humira this

weekend. I hope I can get through because my rheummy is out of the office this

week due to a conference. I am also going to ask him about a steriod burst as

well to try and quiet down some of this lung inflammation. I can feel my

lungs rubbing together!

I had never heard of this kind of thing. But this is as bad if not worst as

when I had drug induced pneumonitis from Methotrexate.

My doc was also kind enough to order my labs which I have needed for over

six months and not be able to get done due to insurance issues. So my rheummy

will be glad to have them when I go for my appnt next month.

The doc I saw was also a new doc to me. My old family practice doc refuses

to do labs for any outside doc...so he will not do the labs my rheummy

orders. I was shocked!!! I asked so what do you do when you refer a patient

to a

specialist and the specialist writes for labs. She told me you need to go to

an independent lab and get them down...then ask them to send a copy to us

for your chart.

I explained to her that if I do not have labs done during a doctors visit

that my insurance makes me pay a large deductible and then they only pay 50% of

the test. She said sorry..I guess you will have to pay for it.

So though the drive 30 miles to this doc is not fun. At least they have a

Full radiology department and lab and if I go for a doc appnt my new doc does

not mind ordering the tests for my rheummy. This doc was even nice enough to

give me samples so I did not have to by the Advair...which is VERY expensive!

Toni