Hello, new to list and to RA

May 9, 2010

Hi all my name is Randy, I am a 43 yr old male w/multiple dxes, at 17 yrs

old after an X-ray of my spine I was told that I had arthritis of a 40 yr old.

My back has been getting progressively worse over the years. June 2 yrs ago I

had surgery on my neck 2 levels and four titanium plates. I have stenosis, bone

spurs, bulging and herniated disks, not to mention impinged nerves in my spine.

I have had arthritis in many other joints also. In Feb 2009 I had surgery on my

left shoulder and was disabled from any kind of physical kind of work or

activity. My recovery from the last surgery has been very slow, and I was having

a lot of pain in most of my joints and was constantly fatigued. I went to see a

rummy last summer and was dxed with RA, OA, and possably Lupus (I had 2 markers

for Lupus), wow! It was a bit more than I was ready for, I kinda expected RA

being that it runs in my family. I am currently on methatrexate 80units inj. ,

plaquinel 40mg,

prednisone 2.5mg, folic acid 10mg.and Oxycodone 10/325mg. it seemed to help

allot for a while but I'm not sure it is working as well any more, dr. increases

methatrexate every time I go in, I do trust him and I believe he is good.

I try to live a positive life and am going to U of U for retraining but

sometimes the pain and lack of mobility gets to me and I get a little depressed.

I feel like I just need to be able to talk to others going through the same

thing and maybe gain a little bit of hope and a little bit of info that might

help, I've heard of biologic but they are so expensive that I can't afford them.

I get so tired of pain and just don't know what to do. I have been very active

and now I try but I just can't do the things I used to. It is embarrassing to

have my son put my socks & shoes on for me, altho he don't mind. I hope you

don't think that I am complaining too much, today was a bad day for me but I do

have good days too.

Randy

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