New to this site, my story and some questions!

[Guest guest]

Hi,

I`ll give you my background. I went to Thailand in March and got

mild gastro, didn`t think anything of it. In the last week I was

there a thin red line appeared in my right eye, but no pain.

Got back and the red line was still there but no pain, after a week

or two it began to hurt a little so I went to the doctor, who gave me

some antibiotic drops. That night the fun began, I put them in and

my eye flare up very red and was insanely painful.

The next day I went to eye emergency room to get checked out, noticed

I was really stiff in the legs but was worrying about my eye too

much. They gave me various drops, pred forte etc and I kept going

back for the next week. I told them I was a bit stiff and they said

`Òh yeah, by the way you've probably arthritis better see a

rheumatologist about it` I was thinking `What the...?`

For the next month I did loads of tests often offering the idea that

`perhaps this has something to do with Thailand` all the doctors said

it had nothing to do with it.

Then after seeing a few different specialists they finally worked out

it was Reiters disease and that I had the genetic HLA B27 marker.

The eye slowly got better and I went on anti-inflammatories

(Meloxican), was told that I should be better by six months. Six

months passes eye is no longer flared up, but joints are still very

much inflammed, so I begin (about 10 weeks ago) sulfasalazine.

As yet there has been no real change, I went to see another

specialist they tell me that I will have this arthritis for life and

that I should also now have methotrexate also. I`ve done some

research don`t like the sound of it. I stumbled accross the low dose

antibiotic method which lead me here.

The idea of treating the cause rather than the symptoms seems to make

much more sense to me. However the low dose antibiotic method seems

just as problematic as other options.

Doesn`t the body build up an ammunity to antibiotics meaning that

will eventually not work also leaving me more susceptable to other

infections?

Is it something that you usually take forever?

Does anyone have a similar story to my and can vouch for results?

How long does it usually take for results?

What have the results been like for you?

Sorry for the long winded post!

Any info much appreciated