And in other news...
For those who haven't been paying attention to my sporadic whining (and I can't remember how much of it I've posted on this blog, anyway), allow me to recap:
My RA has been worsening over the past two years or so, yet every time I see my rheumatologist, it just happens to be a relatively "good" day for me, and he doesn't understand why I'm telling him how much pain I've been in, how much my mobility and my ability to do simple things like turn on a faucet have been limited, how frighteningly swollen my hands and feet have been, etc., so he just tells me I look really good and we'll keep doing what we've been doing. Over the past two or three weeks, things have been particularly bad, even causing me to get up in the middle of the night a few nights a week to take a pain killer, which is something I have not done previously -- usually I just take one before bed and I'm good for the night.
Well, I had an appointment on Monday, and for once I was actually happy to be in pain when I woke up that morning. My doctor finally saw me the way I've been for much of the past two years, and he immediately decided that a med change was in order. One of the meds I've been taking for the past six years, Enbrel, is known as a biologic. One can apparently develop antibodies to a given biologic after taking it for awhile, so that it stops being effective. He suspects that it what has happened in my case. He has switched me to Humira, and I had my first injection on Thursday. These drugs aren't the sort of treatment that is immediately effective; they take time to build up in your system before they start working, so it will be six to eight weeks before we know whether the Humira is going to work for me.
In the meantime, I have been having such severe hand and wrist problems lately that I saw my hand surgeon on Friday. I've got severe carpal tunnel symptoms in the left hand, but we have decided to address the right wrist first because it is significantly more painful and he can't operate on both at the same time. I'm scheduled for an MRI on Wednesday and then a follow-up visit the following Friday to go over the results and most likely schedule surgery to remove what he is pretty sure is a ganglion cyst.
The MRI worries me because I've had two joint fusion surgeries, which means I have metal pins and screws in one hand and one foot -- he assured me I can still have an MRI, but I am going to bring this up again with the MRI tech when I go, because I don't want to get in there and have the hardware ripped out of my joints by the magnet or anything. Yikes!!
I have also been having foot problems which are rapidly worsening, so once I get the hand issues taken care of, a trip to the foot surgeon will be next on the list. I seem to do the surgery thing in spurts.
In any event, I am really, really tired of being in severe pain and I really hope the Humira works for me. If it doesn't, we will move down the list of biologics until we find one that does.
My RA has been worsening over the past two years or so, yet every time I see my rheumatologist, it just happens to be a relatively "good" day for me, and he doesn't understand why I'm telling him how much pain I've been in, how much my mobility and my ability to do simple things like turn on a faucet have been limited, how frighteningly swollen my hands and feet have been, etc., so he just tells me I look really good and we'll keep doing what we've been doing. Over the past two or three weeks, things have been particularly bad, even causing me to get up in the middle of the night a few nights a week to take a pain killer, which is something I have not done previously -- usually I just take one before bed and I'm good for the night.
Well, I had an appointment on Monday, and for once I was actually happy to be in pain when I woke up that morning. My doctor finally saw me the way I've been for much of the past two years, and he immediately decided that a med change was in order. One of the meds I've been taking for the past six years, Enbrel, is known as a biologic. One can apparently develop antibodies to a given biologic after taking it for awhile, so that it stops being effective. He suspects that it what has happened in my case. He has switched me to Humira, and I had my first injection on Thursday. These drugs aren't the sort of treatment that is immediately effective; they take time to build up in your system before they start working, so it will be six to eight weeks before we know whether the Humira is going to work for me.
In the meantime, I have been having such severe hand and wrist problems lately that I saw my hand surgeon on Friday. I've got severe carpal tunnel symptoms in the left hand, but we have decided to address the right wrist first because it is significantly more painful and he can't operate on both at the same time. I'm scheduled for an MRI on Wednesday and then a follow-up visit the following Friday to go over the results and most likely schedule surgery to remove what he is pretty sure is a ganglion cyst.
The MRI worries me because I've had two joint fusion surgeries, which means I have metal pins and screws in one hand and one foot -- he assured me I can still have an MRI, but I am going to bring this up again with the MRI tech when I go, because I don't want to get in there and have the hardware ripped out of my joints by the magnet or anything. Yikes!!
I have also been having foot problems which are rapidly worsening, so once I get the hand issues taken care of, a trip to the foot surgeon will be next on the list. I seem to do the surgery thing in spurts.
In any event, I am really, really tired of being in severe pain and I really hope the Humira works for me. If it doesn't, we will move down the list of biologics until we find one that does.
posted by Catherine at 9:35 PM
2 Comments:
You know I meet many people who are a lot better off (Physically) than you. Yet to hear them go on you'd think the sky was falling in.
You're a trooper young lady and I'd be proud to have you watch my back.
P.S
Now that's out of the way. I have a hit job on the ginger cat next door for you to carry out. He keeps sneaking in and I wake up to find him actually sleeping on my chest. (He comes in through the window)
Thanks, Pounce! The MRI went fine except they had me in a very uncomfortable position and I couldn't move at all for half an hour or so. Turns out the metal in my joints is titanium, which is MRI-safe, so it wasn't an issue. Phew!
You just send Mr. Ginger over here and I will take care of him. I usually have so many kitties piled on and around me overnight that I probably wouldn't notice an extra one. :) Now if only I could get Punkin to stop waking me up in the middle of the night. He has developed a nasty habit of knocking things off of my shelves and all over the floor in the middle of the night lately. He started doing this after I put the new floor in. I think he likes how noisy it is.
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