RA to Cancer | Arthritis Information
My wife has been diagnosed with RA. She was diagnosed about 1 year ago but I can now understand that her symptoms first started maybe 10 years ago. She has been under the care of a Rheumatologist taking NASIDS and DMARDS. She has progressively been getting worse and we are in the process of swithing Rheumatologists. She is 42 and lives in constant pain.
My wife's mother died recently of CLL (cronic leukemia). She was diagnosed with leukemia 10 years before she died. I can now see that she had very low immune system long before she was diagnosed with CLL as she was constantly sick and ailing. My wifes father died 3 years ago from Multiple Myeloma (also blood cancer). Although it is not spoken we now are both wondering and fearful that her RA is a precurser to something worse.
Is there anyone out there that was first diagnosed with RA and later developed cancer?
While our disease may predispose us to other things.... The best thing we can do to help ourselves may be to follow our RD's advice and follow the path to feeling better...
My mother had Raynaud's and beat lymphoma..... that doesn't mean I will develop Raynaud's and have lymphoma......
Do you see what I mean?
While your ILs blood diseases are what took their lives... it Does Not mean that is what is in the future w/ your wife....
One thing about RA... you'll have multiple blood tests that may give a heads up(*IF*) if anything in the blood is affected....
I am a here and now kind of person.... Deal w/ the here and now, and the future may take care of itself.
Best to you and your wife!!
(ETA: an "A" in may)
babs102009-07-20 09:56:54Babs is right on the money with her assessment! I know the possibilities of the out come of this disease, the drugs and well, life. I know I have to control my RA in the strictest way possible because the consequences the disease itself causes.
I also know feeling so wracked with the pain of it all, makes one feel as if something other must be going on because otherwise, how could you possibly feel so awful??? Find a good RD who will treat aggressively and get her pain and inflammation under control. She may have a much better outlook on life when that happens.
As one good friend said to another here on the forum yesterday,
carpe diem!
Jerome Groopman, M.D., in his book
How Doctors Think says, "Cancer ,of course, is a feared disease that becomes more likely as we grow older. It will strike roughly one in two men and one in three women over the course of their lifetime."
Statistically each of us, whether or not we have RA or any other physical illness, can be stricken with cancer at any time.
Coincidence is not causation. However, the uncontrolled inflammation of RA can, and all to often does, increase the risk of co-morbidity. It would be my suggest to deal with the inflammatory course of RA and once control has been obtained (and the goal of remission in sight) then discuss these concerns with your wife's physicians.
Best wishes to both of you, Shug
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