New Guy Here

[Guest guest]

Hi All. New to the group as I was recently diagnosed with RA and in

the " seeking information " phase. Sorry if this is a long post but

need to dump a bit.

First, I'm a 59 year old male and looking back now, probably have

been plagued with this ailment for a while. Other medical issues may

have masked or confused the underlying issue of RA but that's all

water under the bridge. Things started coming unraveled several

months back when I apparently experienced a significant flare up with

my neck and shoulders that may have also inflammed the arteries. I

ended up in the emergency room after a couple of immobile days

suffering at home. They sent me off with a prescription for

Prednisone, Celebrex and pain killers with instructions to see my

doc. Of course after a couple days on the Prednisone I was feeling

like a new man so who needs to see a doctor, right?

My job took me to Brazil a couple times this year and upon returning

from my last trip with bronchitis which I attributed to the burning

sugarcane fields, I had the return of the neck and shoulder pain, but

now further complicated with pain around the sternum area which made

it extremely painful to cough, sneeze, yawn and breath deeply. The

company doc called it costochondritis (inflammation of the cartilage)

and recommended Aleve. Then over the course of the next 6 weeks or

so I started adding to the list of symptoms. Extreme stiffness and

pain in my knees and hips in the morning but making it difficult to

get out of a chair after sitting for more than a few minutes. Then

this ugly nodule decided to take up residence on my right index

finger. It was getting rather large. Forgot to mention, I also have

Hypothyroidism and take Levothyroxine. Being stubborn, I self-

diagnosed this as a reaction to the Levo so cut back my dosage to

half of the .75 mcg I was taking. Stupid, huh? Don't worry. After

later blood tests I corrected that thinking.

No change after self doctoring and the joints and stiffness getting

worse I finally came to my senses and called the doc. Of course he

was on vacaiton so waited until his return a week later.

Fortunately for me I have an excellent doctor. That is when I let

him do his job. He did the clinical evaluation and ordered up the

blood work. Bottom line, a very high SED rate and something about

ANA but no RF. Still, he declared me RA and put me on a 5 day run of

60MG of Prednisone.

Well, that's where I'm at today. Took the last 60MG yesterday.

Calling the doc later today to find out what the next steps are. He

mentioned DMARDs and biologic DMARDs. He also mentioned anti

inflammatories which we're both a bit cautious about as I have a

history of GI bleeding (Illiac and duodenal due to fortunately mild

Crohns - is there an autoimmune thing going on here?). The

Prednisone certainly did it's trick with the pain and stiffness. I

could actually convince myself that I'm OK now (if I don't look at my

hand) but I know better than that. Maybe starting to get wise with

age.

So that's me. The name is Bob. I'll probably lurk a bit more than I

post. I'm an avid reader and will digest as much as I can and will

post when I have questions. Thanks for listening.

Bob