Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Swelling? Back Pain?

I hadn't had noticeable swelling until recently. I guess lack of swelling is a problem or something, since we don't have cool technology to determine whether or not one has arthritis in the absence of symptoms visible to the naked eye. Oh, wait, can't MRI's, ultrasound, and even x-rays later in the game show that sort of thing?

Okay, snark over. I went back to rheumatology nurse a few weeks ago, who said Sea Lamprey Rheumatologist was wrong on the "No, you're just coming in with pain" thing and it is indeed rheumatoid arthritis and the pain level has decreased with methotrexate use.

Oddly, my back pain (For which I was supposed to see primary care, and I did) has gotten better with using methotrexate. Part of the back pain was pain when pressing on my lower lumbar and sacral areas, and the back pain started prior to the rest of the joint pain. Hopefully it's better due to my gait not being off from inflamed ankles or something.

And about a week after I saw rheumatology nurse, my fingers completely swelled up. I pried my wedding rings off. The swelling has been in and out, but never completely gone. The skin over my knuckles looks deflated when the swelling goes down. My fingers don't hurt as much as they did prior to methotrexate. Not sure if the swelling is RA-related or not since I'm in less pain.

Weird.

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