I was just wondering. I believe that, but it still gets loosey-goosey because a rheum would say if you have reactive arthritis, antibiotics would cure you in a few weeks.
They thought my daughter had reactive arthritis and she was treated for multi-focal osteomyletis, as if she had a bone/joint infection. I have her hospital discharge papers (no wait, not anymore, a rheum snatched them away...) that state she had dramatic clinical improvement after just two days there on abx. Her wrist had absolutely no ROM when she was admitted. By the end of her 21 day treatment, it flexed normally but still didn't extend. She did not cry when I touched her or go lie down fifteen minutes after she got up in the morning. She didn't scream when I put her pajamas on her.
I was told the antibiotics didn't help her, because she didn't have an infection. And she didn't get "all the way better".
I would give anyting to turn back time, to know what I know now, to have found a way then to keep her on abx for another course. I really think things would have turned out differently. I think we would be done.
Also, in most MD's mind, reactive arthritis is a STD. Test negative and they think you don't have it. So, you're on a sore point with me. How can Lyme and some forms of RA be infection and the rest is not????
This is YET another reason I can't believe they are so stuck on the 'body attacking self' model.
I don't thik that reactive arthritis IS rheumatoid arthritis. I've always understood it to be an infection that can look like rheumatoid arthritis and can be cleared up with antibiotics and NSAIDS usually within a year.
Yes, I agree. RA is what you have left when they decide your arthritis isn't coming from an infection. I think HBLA27 or something plays a role in dx'ing reactive? My daughter was negative for that, but they still went for infection anyway for awhile at least. That's what my GP originally thought with me. It started in one wrist and they put me on antiobitotics. When my other wrist swelled a few days later, he still said infection. He said it could spread that way, from one wrist to the other without touching anything else because maybe their was just somethng vulnerable in my wrists. Over the next week or so that the rest of my joints got involved, and after testing negative for any type of infection, and talking with the CDC, he finally sent me to a rheumy.That still sounds Palindromic to me. And my point exactly. Palindromic, if you took out the RA part, would be infectious in nature. But nobody anywhere says we're infection based.
This is the HUGE difference in the 2 schools of thought on these diseases. Both sides say it's brought on by various factors, the bigest one being some sort of infection started it. (not dissing the environmental people). The 'autoimmune' people believe that that original infection is gone and the body can't seem to turn its response off. APers or people of the infection connection camp say "it's not stopping because the body can't reach the infection'.
All we did is take it one step further.
Pip
They tried to tell me 'stress' caused my daughter to get sick. You know how stressful toddlerhood is.....
Okay, I can give that up to the unknown. Maybe she thought there was monster under her crib, or something.
But they never could explain how the stress of her normal everyday life brought it on, but she improved so much: in the hospital, NPO for two days in a row, failed sedation for a bone scan after being injected with an isotope, would not let anyone take her shoes off (because she thought it meant we could leave), had surgery to remove to piece of a bone from her hand for a biopsy, had a PICC line inserted which paritally collapsed one lung, away from her father and sister for the longest time ever, mom was a basketcase.....
Yes, stress brought it on, and it is just a coincidence that she improved so dramatically while on antibiotics. That's what they all tell me.
OMG - where was that ped rheumy study that 'blamed the parents'?
Arrggh!
Pip
After she failed sedation, one of 'em said the F word. Right in front of me. Right in front of her. Guess that was my fault, too???? Suzanne - good grief, morons. I read up on reactive arthritis in the past few weeks because someone brought it up, and I have none of those symptoms. And Pip, I totally agree: Dr. Parrot: "An autoimmune disease is when the human body which is programmed to LIVE suddenly for no reason attacks itself." BS It's fighting off something like its suppose to do. Morons. I saw a program (20/20 maybe) a long time ago about this crazy disease. I don't remember what it's called now, it's been a while. Anyway, these people's hands would kind of take control of themselves. For instance, this one guys hand grasped the bathroom counter so tight he was stuck their all day. He couldn't make it let go. Another women would have her hand attack her, grab her throat and strangle her. Another guy had to keep knives and such out of his way because he couldn't be sure his hand wouldn't pick one up and stab him.
So what's the point? The point is that their are some really crazy ways the body can go wrong. I wouldn't go throwing around the word "moron" so freely.
Are you sure that wasn't that movie with seth green....Idol Hands, was it? Linncn -
Girl, you've soooo lucked out with docs. I'm leaning towards JSNM - a lot of these guys ARE morons.
Sorry!
Pip
Ummm... I forgot why I even made this post. I done it early this morning on no sleep at all and after reading Shelly41's post and decided to go google PA and then there was some notatioin about Reactive Arthritis, and well... I went to go see the symptoms and the symptoms do not really pretain to me.
It just struck me to ask if people react well to AP, if that just meant they do have an infection in their body and not RA as they were first told.
Hey... that above I think was my main thought and the origin of my question.
Thanks for the replies guys!
Linncn - there are two parts to the body systems - one is on auto-pilot (BP, heart beat, production of white blood cells), the other is the one you contol - to make you walk, talk, speak, etc. when you want to. And I will not change my mind about these morons peddling "sick" care, instead of providing "health" care. The medical profession is a con game - cut your leg off, get in a car crash, have a heart attack, fine. But preventive, helpful, pro-active health care, doesn't exist in any large numbers because medical doctors are not trained to provide "health" care. The last I heard, they are given exactly two hours of nutritional training to obtain their MD shingle. What I find curious Linn is why you consistently post in favor of medical doctors no matter what the subject, or who the poster is? Why are you so in love with medicine? And why do you find it necessary to "correct" posters who move off the party line? Take care ~~ CathyMaybe because not everyone agrees with your opinion's....Just a thoughtI thought she was referring to you - ooops -
JSNM - Linncn has had luck so far. Its only the people like you and me that consistantly run into one problem after another with them that 'lose faith' in the system. It's not an easy thing to come to the conclusions we did. We're trained to 'trust our doctors'. Nobody trains us to 'trust ourselves'. Hence, one idiot after another telling me and my hubby 'we'll try a little bit of this med and a little bit of that, 3 months at a time, and if you still don't get well in eight years we'll consider antivirals". Hubby was MAD. That's when he walked out of the rheumy and PCP 'war plan meeting' and said, 'these idiots would look at other alternatives if it were their child" - meaning, they have a set plan in thier minds and that's what they are going to do. They don't think outside the box. And that's a hive mentality because most of them are like that.
Let's just keep our fingers crossed that Linncn continues to be lucky.
Pip
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