About 11 months ago, I started feeling pain in my left oblique. I thought, "Wow, I'm just like Ryan Dempster! I need to go on the DL." But the pain wouldn't subside. I had trouble turning from one side to another in my sleep. At first I thought I had injured myself with a mean game of bocce ball (a true sign that I'm getting older) in the backyard.
Then I tightened up on the left side of my neck. I could barely turn to the left and definitely couldn't look over my shoulder. I then started experiencing pain in my mid-back. It was like I had been in a car accident and just couldn't loosen up. I would cramp up in my back. On one horrible day, I drove up to Chicago to meet Cupcake Gal and could barely walk to the hotel room from the parking lot to meet her.
I went to a sports medicine doctor thinking I must be injured in some way. His solution was physical therapy. The PT was ok, but the pains (except the one in the neck) just wouldn't go away. After lots of wasted money and time, PT sent me back to the doc and he ran x-rays and blood tests. By this point, I also started started to notice swelling in my right index finger and knuckle. I also had a little inflammation in my left index finger near the fingernail.
After a few weeks, the doc said my SED and ANA rates were a little high and he wanted me to see a rheumatologist (these are the doctors that deal with arthritis patients and diseases like lupus). So I went to Dr. Batt, a top rheumatologist in Indy at Methodist Hospital and he was horrible. He rushed me through an examination and informed me that he thought I had psoriatic arthritis. He poo-poo'd any natural approaches, things to eat/avoid, etc. He handed me a pamphlet on the disease, prescribed an anti-inflammatory medicines (NSAID) and said to come back in a month.
I started reading about psoriatic arthritis and started to panic. The worst-case scenarios are pretty grim and I feared the worst. But the good news was that we had caught this very early and treatment could help/prevent the worst from happening.
to be continued.
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3 comments:
J-Lo -- I was sorry to hear of this and I'm still sorry. I'm staying tuned.
I love cliffhangers on Lost, but not so much for stories about my friends' health. Let's wrap this up quickly, please. Hope you're well. Maybe the problem is you're too analog.
Hey Bob Mayonaise, is that you? Your wait is now over - check it out.
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