My RD Appt. TOO | Arthritis Information

Its all fibro! Well not really, but most all my pain from Friday and over the weekend she says is all fibro that is aggravated by the inflammation from RA. She said because it was not responding well to my pain meds & muscle relaxers. So... the RA is aggravating the fibro again.

She said all the spots I told her that were painful, and hurting were most all of the fibro tenderness points. YAY me! NOT!

So... she gave me another pain med and a different muscle relaxer. She gave me Ultram 50mg for pain and Skelaxin the muscle relaxer.

She said that the Remicade is wearing off too early. And for me to stop tapering off the pred until the Remicade lasts longer between infusion dates. So... she wants me to stay at 9mg of pred. Because 8mg of pred put me into take major flare which was aggravating the fibro.

She added Placquinel 200mg to my list of meds. She said the Imuran was not working well enough on its own and she thinks adding placquinel will help keep my inflammtion down.

Oh and she moved my Remicade infusion intervals to every 5 weeks. I get to start that frequency after my next infusion. I did not even have to ask her about it or convince her. She just wants me off the pred, and the only way to do that is for my RA to be undercontrol a little better than it is now.

She came in the room took one look at me and asked where I hurt I told her every where. She looked at me and said "Are you taking all your meds?" I was like yep, just got them refilled last Thursday. She said hummm. Then I told her "You have me tapering pred." She said what mg are you down to? I said 8mg. She said and how long you been hurting like this. I said "Since I dropped down to 8mg." She said Ok... go back up to 9mg and stop tapering until we get it more under control.

She even offered to give me injections into my neck, upper back and shoulders. But She knows I do not like needles and I told her if she felt it was necessay then I will do it. She just looked at me and asked about what pain meds & muscle relaxer I was on.

So... that is it in a nut shell.

joonie2009-02-17 20:54:30Ugh, fibro! I hope you get some relief! So the pain in your thighs, was that fibro? I really don't want to have fibro. Sounds ridiculous, right? I am tired of saying "ow" when my husband hugs me! I hope the plaq will help you, and glad you have more pred in the meantime, and infusions closer together!

This was like everyone go to RD day!
Hope her tweaking brings you the relief you deserve! Everytime I read skelaxin I think of skeletons....silly. Well, I did NOT go to the RA today....

Sounds like an OK appointment. I hate the fibro stuff for you. My mom and sister have that and I can tell it is painful. I hope the new meds bring you some relief. I do think moving up the Remicade will help. I was on a 6 week interva that last year. Is she feeling that the stroke issue has improved? You don't want us getting worried about you again....
Joonie do you get the shakes with fibro? I think you might be right. I think I've developed fibro now as a complication of long term sleep apnea. I have found evidence that suggests that the two are closely related and that sleep apnea is also responsible for irritable bowel type symptoms which I have had for months.

Ever tried Lyrica for the fibro? I know only one other person that has fibro and JRA and she refuses to take it because she says it was making her fat. No way was I going there on that one so I just said that stinks and changed the subject.

I go for remicade infusion number 2 next tuesday. Hope it starts to kick in soon and if not....Orencia is on deck.
No, I think she just gave up on it. Probably because no one else knows and she does not know either. My neurologist said he might know, but I have not been back to him because of a stupid rule they have LOL! It is called paying your co-pay. LOL! I am trying to get it all straightened out the co-pay I am not to be paying. But until then... they will not make me another appt until that is paid. So... a couple more months he should be able to tell me what he thinks.

I was surprised she when she said how about every 5 weeks. I figured she would have went down to 6 weeks. I am on every 8 weeks now. I am not going to complain LOL! I was going to settle for 2 weeks of increased symptoms, soon it will be 1 week or none. Fine with me!

Yes, she said the pain in my thigh is fibro. She has been saying that since it started, but I just cannot believe it is for some reason.

She also asked me if I have been getting enough sleep this past week. I thought it was a weird question. But answer was still no LOL! My legs have been doing their jerking thing while I am laying down or sleeping. Last night they kept waking me up. But at least the alien was not coming out of the closet to cattle prode me again LOL! It is not to that point again, yet.
Shakes? I get twitches. I do not think I shake. I mostly get twitches and jerks.

She was talking to me about putting me on Lyrica today, but then she just upped the Remeron to 50mg. I was taking 10mg. She just asked if she has RXed Lyrica for me, and I said nope not yet and told her she had me on Remeron and then she said she would just up it.

Ok... so I was "researching" fibromyalgia hahahahha! And I have decided I am going to believe that the pain in my right thigh is fibro. I only say that because after a year of it and no other explaination for it, I just need to let it go and be fibro LOL! So... your free thigh pain... run and join the other fibro problems I have. Make me proud! LMAO!

Well... actually I was looking up what the heck a tender point injection was... and well... what it said finally made sense to me. Inconjunction to what exactly a TPI is, which made sense. And no wonder she did not do it LOL!

It said:

Trigger point injection (TPI) is a procedure used to treat painful areas of muscle that contain trigger points, or knots of muscle that form when muscles do not relax. Many times, such knots can be felt under the skin. Trigger points may irritate the nerves around them and cause referred pain, or pain that is felt in another part of the body.

In the TPI procedure, a health care professional inserts a small needle into the patients trigger point. The injection contains a local anesthetic that sometimes includes a corticosteroid . With the injection, the trigger point is made inactive and the pain is alleviated. Usually, a brief course of treatment will result in sustained relief. Injections are given in a doctors office and usually take just a few minutes. Several sites may be injected in one visit. If a patient has an allergy to a certain medication, a dry-needle technique (involving no medications) can be used.

For some reason it makes sense to me now. I guess because over thw weekend my neck/shoulder muscle was visable. I mean you could see the muscle sticking out of the side of my neck. It was awful. So... the above makes sense for my thigh muscle. Which I guess it is not relaxed yet. Or it does relax, but then tenses up again.

This stuff sure is some crazy crap!

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