Re: extended oligoarthritis; answ.Diane

[Guest guest]

Soili-

Thanks for the information. I'd love to hear any more information you might have on this subject. I know I am being a bit paranoid worrying about this now. I am really grateful is doing as well as she is. She's on Relafen, methotrexate and folic acid. I can't say she's in remission, but she functions basically normally. Her knee continues to be swollen and it's a bit contracted, but she generally says it doesn't hurt. Her legs get "tired" if she walks too much. Occasionally, she complains of pain in the other joints (ankle, elbow and wrist). She recently complained about her back hurting and I was worried about that, but she hasn't mentioned it again. Somebody else on the group (I can't remember who) has a daughter who regularly goes into long remissions and then it comes back much worse. I guess that's what I'm worried about and was just wondering about how common that is. Your son's first remission was for such a long time. Was that thru joint injections? And how long before the second remission? I hope the joint injection works on the ankle and Arthur doesn't appear in any other joints. Thanks again for the info.

Diane (, 3, pauci)

[Guest guest]

Wow, Soili:

The health care system in your country is AMAZING. The ankle got swollen yesterday and then was injected the very next day!!!! It takes almost a month here in Canada! Partly because they do it under general anesthetic, and I'm not sure if there is a shortage of those guys, or what, but they also only do the JRA kids on Fridays.... rheumatology's turn to have dibs on the guy that puts the kids to sleep. It never used to be this bad - a few weeks at most but the health care system here is getting worse by the month, it seems.

Lynn

From: " soilimar2000 " <soilimar@...>

Reply-

Date: Wed, 05 Jun 2002 19:00:21 -0000

Subject: Re: " extended " oligoarthritis; answ.Diane

Hi Diane,

my son was diagnosed at the age of 5 with hip, ankle and knee. He

went to remission very quickly, and was ok for almost two years. When

he turned 7 in jan.2001 he had a relapse with both hips, ankles,

knees, wrists and cerebral spine (neck) affected. He was put on

methotrexate, given a serious amount of injections, and remission was

seen in 6 mo. Now he's been fine for a month, but yesterday his right

ankle got swollen and today it was injected with glucocorticoid

(stuff called Lederlon), other joints seem to be ok (thank God!). I'm

also a bit scared if another relapse is to come...

I don't remember exactly the amount of pauci(%) they say will

extend... but if you can wait 'till tomorrow I'll find out because we

have a ped.rheum.dr. who made his doctoral thesis on the prognosis of

jra, and he showed some figures there, only I have them in my office.

He also found out that in finnish population, 85% of jra kids has a

very good prognosis, and 15 % has a bad one, and the " mid-group " was

sort of lacking. So either the kids (this was a twenty-year survey)

come out really well, or really bad... The worst prog. was with early-

onset erosive (seropositive) polyarthritis and also, I'm afraid,

early-onset extended oligoarthritis...

But please remember this is just one study and done with us peculiar

northern people...

I'll tell you more if you're interested, just let me know.

And...don't think of relapse before it's happened! Enjoy while you

can.

Good luck!

Soili