Hello, I'm new here: Very long post with introduction

August 19, 2005

Hi Everyone:

I just joined your group today. Here's a little history on me.

Auto-immune diseases run in my immediate family. My mom was

diagnosed with RA about 46 years ago. She has it in every joint in

her body and has been completely disabled for more than 10 years.

She is, to say the very least, an extreme case. My bothers suffer

from psoriasis, gout, and RA.

Up until 2 and a half years ago I had led a healthy life. One

morning I woke up and had a massive swelling on my right knee. It

came out of the blue. I was meeting up with my best friends from

high school that day and joked that if this was an indication of

what 40 was like (we were all turning 40 that year) then I didn't

want any part of it. Within 3 days of the initial swelling (like a

goose egg) I developed extreme swelling from my shin to my thigh. I

was unable to bend my leg or bear any weight on it. I went on sick

leave from work and underwent a battery of tests (blood, x-ray, mri,

bone scans, ultra-sound) all of them showing nothing abnormal other

than elevate ESR and ANA levels.

In the past 2 and half years I've been treated by various rheum's,

immunologists, and orthopeadic surgeons and none of them could

figure out what was wrong. My life changed drastically since I had

limited range of motion and mobility.

Last month I went in for exploratory arthroscopic surgery. At my

follow-up appt. the surgeon said that everything in my knee looked

very good other than a bit of rough cartilidge, which he cleaned

up. Tissue samples were sent for examination and the pathologist

reported that I do have RA.

I'm happy that there has been no damage to my knees yet but need to

now follow-up with my rheum. I'm thinking of pursuing methotrexate

treatments at this time to help prevent future damage.

Any thoughts, opinions, experiences would be greatly appreciated.

I'm very glad I found this group.

Sorry for the long message.

cd100

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