Newbie Here

[Guest guest]

First, let me say that I'm so glad to have found this place. I was

diagnosed with RA in November 1999, at the ripe old age of 30. After

my initial flare up, I spent many years with my RA in remission thanks

to Plaquinil and NSAIDs. But the disease started making almost annual

appearances about 3 years ago. My most recent flare up started

gradually a couple of months ago, but have gotten unbearable due to

small-minded doctors recently. Here are the details of the events

leading up to my current debilitating flare up:

My RA has picked a really bad time to rear its ugly head again. I'm

supposed to be arranging the dinner for my son's 8th grade graduation,

and I need to get up really early one Tuesday or Thursday to get my

son registered at the high school (he's not at a " feeder school " , so

it's not a seamless process).

Meanwhile, I can barely walk. Mostly I walk by holding on to whatever

I can grasp. Despite this, I've been having a Hell of a time getting

in with a rheumatologist. I so wish I still had Kaiser right now. When

I was with Kaiser, the nurses would do all they could to get me in if

I was having a painful flare up. I did a 20 mile radius search with my

provider, and got 19.4 miles before I could get anyone who was taking

new patients and wasn't going to make me waste my time going to a

" primary care " doctor for a referral - when I've had a diagnosis of

Rheumatoid Arthritis since 1999, and a letter from my former Kaiser

primary care physician attesting to that. And the provider 19.4 miles

away that would talk to me doesn't have any new patient openings until

late-July! I suppose it should be no surprise that Stanford books up

appointments well in advance, but I can't put my life on hold for 2

months.

Finally, last Thursday, I couldn't walk at all without holding on to

furniture when I first got up. I called in sick to work, and by 1:00

P.M. was able to at least make baby steps slowly without holding onto

things. So I slowly made my way down the stairs from my apartment, and

to the parking lot, and went to the closest Urgent Care center in

Willow Glen. Thankfully, by having the urgent care doctor call the

rheumatology department at San Medical Group, she was able to get

me an appointment Monday morning - something I was unable to do on my

own. The rheumatologist also instructed her to give me a

corticosteroid shot to hold me over. Unfortunately, it didn't do much

good. I could let go of the furniture a little more often, but still

had the mobility level of an 85 year old who lost her walker.

Fast forward to today. So I make my way over to the clinic in time for

my 11:30 A.M. appointment - only to find out that my appointment had

been canceled due the doctor calling in, and no one bothered to tell

me. And, of course, they were otherwise booked until July. I told the

girl at the desk that that wasn't good enough. I can't go another

month living with this level of pain and helplessness. So she says

they will make some calls and see what they can do.

They manage to come up with an appointment at 12 P.M. a week from

Tuesday. Better than July, but still not acceptable. So I take the

appointment, but I go back to the urgent care again, because there is

no way in Hell I was going to spend another week in pain and helpless.

I can barely walk, I have laundry piling up, and I can barely get up

the stairs to my apartment.

Thankfully, I manage to get a doctor at the urgent care with a

rheumatology background - he hasn't gotten board certified in the U.S.

yet, but he was board certified in Russia. So he prescribed me a

course of prednisone - starting at 40 mgs, then tapering off

gradually. He also ordered the usual blood tests to check how bad the

flare up is so that the results would be ready for my appointment next

week.

My wonderful day ended at Long's with a prescription that was supposed

to take 15 - 20 minutes actually taking over an hour to fill. By the

time I got home from all of this, I was beyond exhausted.