Lots of appointments...

Hey,

How are we all? I have been feeling a bit crappy recently.. So here goes..

I saw the Rheumatologist, who immediately thought it looked like Rheumatoid arthiritis in my hands.. He sent me off for a scan and bloods urgently and back in within a week.. As they can never get blood from my arms he said if it turned out I do have RA, I'll need to consider a hickman line or something similar so they can draw blood easily and regularly for both crohn's and that..

I woke up the day after my appointment feeling really ill, I had a raging temperature and felt sick. As the day went on it kept rising and I felt even more ill, I ended up at the hospital where my CRP, ESR inflammation levels were through the roof again, I'd had severe diarrhea and stomach pains since I came out of hospital anyway so had a feeling something was going down. They put me on IV antibiotics for 48 hrs with anti sickness drugs and of course, the line blew as usual so I persuaded them to let me try them orally and go home.. The more worrying thing was I completely stopped going to the toilet so was concerned the inflammation may of narrowed again, but I thought I'd see how it went..

Thursday, it was time to have the ultrasound on my hands, ready to see him on thursday.. The consultant radiologist did it for me, he pointed out bad inflammation in both wrists and other finger joints.. He hadn't even looked at my back etc so dread to think what that was like!! He pretty much told me there and then it looked like rheumatoid arthritis but said he'd write the report up.. 
The next day I saw the rheumatologist and he said it was the diagnosis he thought from both the bloods and scans.. Another problem to cope with! He did say he's seen other patients with inflammatory bowel diseases end up with RA too as it's the same thing as crohn's, my immune system attacking. Luckily, the treatment for Crohn;s and RA are the same so should kill two birds with one stone! As I'm already on azathioprine and mesasaline, and it's failed.. The next stage would be methotrexate for RA but it can have an adverse effect on crohn's of you have both conditions.. Next stage is anti TNF's.. AKA REmicade/infliximab or humira.. First of all, I need to be referred to vascular surgeons to sort my line out though.. I'm back to see him 12th to arrange it all.... 

In the mean time, still hadn't been to the toilet and my gastro was inconveniently on holiday!! I was starting to lose appetite and feel very uncomfortable and nauseous.. I'd tried laxido and lactulose but may as well of not bothered! I managed to get a hold of my GP and begged for picolax to try and move it along before it started making me vomit.. Luckily, they agreed... For anyone who has had picolax will know what it's like... dynamite!!! It took a fair whack to get it working but boy did it work.. The problem is it gives you griping stomach ache and once you start you really can't stop... Being more than a minute away from a loo is just not an option!!! So I was up and down to the toilet all night along.. and still going!!

Anyway, I have my sehcat bile study this week (I may as well move into the hospital I hear you say!!) and no doubt I will hear from my gastro about how bad my joints are, which probably means the inflammation in the bowel is quite bad too.... He can try all he likes to talk me into a scope, it won't work!!!!!!

Til next time :)

T