Living with Rheumatoid Athritis

A letter from the hospital arrived this morning and I thought that the x-ray results had arrived much quicker than expected. But no - it was from the respiratory department with an appointment calling me in for some tests, so I have gone from knowing that I have rheumatoid arthritis to wondering what else I have. I must admit that my shortness of breath seems to have got worse over the past week or so and I tend to get out of breath when I am walking. Obviously some of this is down to my weight, although I have managed to lose a few pounds recently, but it looks like there may be something else causing it. I suppose that there is no sense in worrying too much. I will know more at my appointment on the fifth of March. The steroid injection I had last week doesn't seem to have kicked in although it knocked me for six on Wednesday and I missed the Dons' 3-3 draw with Motherwell. I did manage to make it to Pittodrie on Saturday though. Another draw. It would be great to actually se...

9.30 February 14th 2024 was the time I had been looking forward to with a fair degree of trepidation as this was the first time I had seen a rheumatologist. I arrived early and was quickly seen by a nurse who took my blood pressure and relieved me of my urine sample. She also gave me two sample bottles - at least I won't have to pee into a bottle next time! Then back to wait. At around 9.45 a doctor, who I had seen arrive at 9.30, called my name - and off we went. I had Marian with me in case I forgot anything. The first thing he did was ask how it all started. I had a bunch of notes with me so I was able to give a fairly comprehensive account of things. The only current symptoms I had were shoulder pain, knee pain and my thumb soreness. The doctor spent some time examining my fingers and wrists and then he made a few ultrasound scans of the same area. He decided that the best course of action was a steroid injection and then try me on a course of Methotrexate. He explained that th...

Since I was diagnosed I have read everything I could find online about rheumatoid arthritis. That was a bad idea. There is an awful lot of contradictory stuff out there and the pictures I have seen of deformed limbs have made me worried at times. I'm now going to wait and see what the rheumatologist has to say. Today is my first day of only 5mg of steroids. I had a whole week of only 10mg and some of the pain in my shoulders has come back and I still have the pain below my thumbs. It's nothing that I can't cope with though and some news I got this week has kind of put everything into perspective. Life is still fairly normal and I've had visits to watch the Dons, to the pub and a wonderful whisky tasting although my right knee has been a bit on the sore side. I had a couple of days this week when I felt really low but I may have caught a bit of a bug from school. Speaking of school, working three days is one of the things that really helps me. Just having something to do...