RA news
You know the old phenomenon where you take your car to the shop, and while it's there, it stops making that funny noise and the mechanic can't find anything wrong with it, and then as soon as you drive away, the noise starts up again?
The same thing happens to me when I go to see my rheumatologist. The last two times I've seen him, I've been having horrible flare-ups for weeks beforehand. Then, the morning of my appointment, I suddenly feel much better, and he tells me everything looks great and to keep doing whatever I've been doing. A few hours later, I'm in excruciating pain again.
I saw him last Monday and told him how much trouble I've been having for the past six weeks or so. He did agree that some of my joints were flared up and that I had definitely worsened since he'd last seen me, but he didn't think it was that bad. I'd been hoping he would take me off the Enbrel and put me on Humira, because I'm pretty sure the Enbrel is no longer working. He'd told me some time ago that you can develop antibodies to these drugs, and that usually just switching from one to another does the trick.
Well, he didn't think that was necessary at this point, so he just upped my methotrexate dosage a bit and wants to see me again in a month. Of course, later that afternoon, everything flared up again and I could barely walk.
The flare-up has seemed to settle down a bit over the past week, but I'm still having trouble with joints flaring up at random -- shoulders, knees, hands, feet, hips -- something will just flare up out of the blue and will be very painful for a day or two, and then die down. There is currently something very odd going on with my left arm -- the lower part of my forearm is all swollen and red and tender. There's no joint there, but I am sure it is somehow related to the RA.
In any event, I'll see the doctor again next month, and he will make the med switch at that point if I'm not better.
The same thing happens to me when I go to see my rheumatologist. The last two times I've seen him, I've been having horrible flare-ups for weeks beforehand. Then, the morning of my appointment, I suddenly feel much better, and he tells me everything looks great and to keep doing whatever I've been doing. A few hours later, I'm in excruciating pain again.
I saw him last Monday and told him how much trouble I've been having for the past six weeks or so. He did agree that some of my joints were flared up and that I had definitely worsened since he'd last seen me, but he didn't think it was that bad. I'd been hoping he would take me off the Enbrel and put me on Humira, because I'm pretty sure the Enbrel is no longer working. He'd told me some time ago that you can develop antibodies to these drugs, and that usually just switching from one to another does the trick.
Well, he didn't think that was necessary at this point, so he just upped my methotrexate dosage a bit and wants to see me again in a month. Of course, later that afternoon, everything flared up again and I could barely walk.
The flare-up has seemed to settle down a bit over the past week, but I'm still having trouble with joints flaring up at random -- shoulders, knees, hands, feet, hips -- something will just flare up out of the blue and will be very painful for a day or two, and then die down. There is currently something very odd going on with my left arm -- the lower part of my forearm is all swollen and red and tender. There's no joint there, but I am sure it is somehow related to the RA.
In any event, I'll see the doctor again next month, and he will make the med switch at that point if I'm not better.
posted by Catherine at 10:55 PM
2 Comments:
Time to switch to Dr. Oink. He'll switch you off the stuff that is poisoning you, because he cares so much....
LMAO
Funny how the stuff he says is poisoning me is the stuff Dr. P keeps upping my dosage of. And the increased dosage actually seems to be helping.
The girl at my new job who also has RA is taking the very same poison. Shows what Dr. Oink knows. :)
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