Im new here so, it's nice to meet all of you. Here is the very short version of a 6 year story.
All of the tendons in my body are inflammed but, I do not have the markers for arthritis. I have been treated for lyme disease for over a year(2 years ago)though, some doctors say that I never had it. I diagnosed myself with hypothyroidism, high mercury levels, vitamine d deficiancy, low free testosterone, and some other things that I can't think of right now. The dr's never thought of these things and I had to beg to be tested over the course of several years. Only one doctor out of 14 says that I have seronegative arthritis because he actual took fluid from several joints and any blind monkey could tell that all of my tendons are swollen.
I eventually got my family DR. to put me on prednisone and mtx. It was that or jumping off a roof while I can still limp around. The pred did very little the first time around. Then he let me try mtx.(I've been ramping upt from 7.5mg to 20mg for 11 weeks. It doesn't do anything on it's own but now, if I take only 5mg of prednisone, I have a noticable improvement. The pred is of course, pretty bad stuff and the dr won't let me use it unless I can barely walk.
So, should I try some other med? Is there some disease that Im not aware of? I wanted to try Actemra now that it's available but, my Dr doesn't know or want to know anything about it, none of the rheumatologists that I have met want to deal with me because I do not test positive for inflammation (even though anyone can see it with the naked eye. I live in Upstate NY where there is very poor health care but have traveled to NYC, Boston, Burlington VT and have met with the same poor service from Dr.s I have been reduced from a very muscular, healthy, productive guy to a skinny, broken down piece of machinery on it's last legs. I've only continued to work because Im creative and just deal with the severe pain. Have you had any Lyme testing ?
Copyright ArthritisInsight.com