Rheumatoid Arthritis

My GP, not happy with my blood test results after many months of treatment with prednisilone for the polymyalgia, referred me to a specialist some weeks ago. I fronted a few weeks ago and he increased my medication which gave me some relief and new energy and I returned for a second appt yesterday afternoon, after having more blood tests on Monday in preparation.

He had no hesitation telling me yesterday that the tests show I have rheumatoid arthritis. He prescribed another drug, methotrexate, which takes 6 weeks to kick in so he left me on the prednisilone also for the time being. Apparently the methotrexate has less side effects long term than the prednisilone, and may not have any if I'm lucky. It can damage the liver and I'm advised to have only light alcohol intake.

I have not yet had time to research all this properly yet and so I don't know how I will be affected into the future. RA can be aggressive with rapid degeneration of joints and muscle tissue causing severe cripplecreek, or it can be mild and go into remission and flare up here and there. I don't think I have much choice but to follow the medical advise and hope that early intervention will prevent serious deterioration, as I'm told can be so. Nobody can be sure where we end up from here, especially in the longer term. I'm on the way down it seems but aren't we all really, it's just a case of when.

I'm not complaining, there are people given terminal diagnosis every day for all manner of cancers, I'm fit and well except for some pain and some lack of agility which is manageable.

My next appt with specialist is in six weeks - I promise not to talk of this till then, it bores me witless so it must you too and I would like to write about other things. I have been very busy as usual but have managed to gather enough firewood for next winter already as well as catch up on some pruning and tidy up. So much more yet to do and no doubt I'll always be very busy until I have a radical change of circumstances which could happen within months or may not for a few years. We just have to see how we go, there are many considerations.