Thanks for your ears and support

June 27, 2005

Hi all,

Kathe, Beth, Tawny, Babs, , and . Thanks so much for your

replies. I'm 46, Grandmother twice, married and living in the

So.CA. desert with my hubby who is trying hard to help me right

now. I have a doc I like alot and the other doc in the rural clinic

is great also. I've been having problems with my tail bone for

about a year now and exersise just seems to aggravate it more but I

have been on pain medicine, lost about 15 pounds over the course of

a year and my pain was getting worse, my doc raised the strenght, I

had the most normal painfree 5weeks in I don't know how long and

then this hit me right when I was really starting to look up. May

12th I awoke with swollen hands , knees and anckles, put ice on them

over the weekend and had dug up a few samples of mobic I had

leftover, started taking them and Naproxene when that ran out. Went

to the doc after the weekend had blood work and he had me stop the

Naproxene a few days come back have another round of blood work. I

couldn't stand the pain on pain meds! so now I have strong pain

meds, Nap 500mg twice a day. I knock myself out at night to sleep

through the pain with sleeping pills and the RH doc added a muscle

relaxer at bed and I've seen him once over a week and a half ago-I

was scheduled back in 4 weeks and bring back with me another batch

of blood tests. I have had maybe 4 not so bad days since this

started but I have gradually got worse since that day over 6 weeks

ago. Is this sudden change in lifestyle common? It hurts to squeeze

a sponge out and dig through my purse. I'm afraid I will be

crippled at this pace before long. Should I request DMARDS? Do's

RA factor show up in blood right away? My bloodwork has not as of

onset.

I read on some site that the first 3 months are vital to start

DMARDS to prevent further damage. Over the weekend my anckles were

weak and my heal came out from under me on my cement steps (nice

cushion huh!)

I started phy therapy for my back recently but don't no what to do

for the other symptoms and I wonder if they are related. Extreme

fatique at times to. Stiff sore shoulders and sharp pains in the

hands. Is Methotrexate and enbel DMARDS? So much to learn. Thanks

for advice.

Roxanna

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