well what a wonderful bs system... lol
well gee a comitee of rd's has approved me to be seen LOL
in jan 19 wonderful
these guys kill me
I could be dead by then lol
well gotta press my Internist till then.... lol
jan 19 sorry that sad the dumb lady said well it could be worse most people never get seen here for 4 months.....
ona good note my hands are are alittle better and my pain is not as bad knock on wood......
geeeeeepers
Sorry about the wait. It is frustrating as heck especially when you are in pain and are eager to get some kind of treatment going to slow everything down and try to get back to life. Isn't it a teaching hospital that you are going to? Ther downside of those is the long wait. The upside tho is that they really are on the cutting edge of technology and medicine. It is kind of six and one half dozen of the other. Wow... I really do feel sorry for you Americans...I can get into a GP within a day here and my Rheum took about 3 weeks.Mark,
I don't know quite what your situation is over there, but in Australia rheumatologists (and skin specialists) seem to be in under-supply, and yes, 3 months is a normal wait time, even for those of us who have private insurance and have been visiting the one rheumy for years. If we have to cancel an appointment, it is usually a 3-month wait before the next available slot. Why? Because before we leave after each visit, an appointment is made for the next visit - when I was first dx'd and the RA was agressive and he was still finding out which meds would work for me, it was every 6 weeks or so - now it is 3 months. This means that the rheumy's appointment book is full up months ahead.
Those who have no private cover and have to go to the public hositals for attn, fare worse.
I hope that your primary care doc can give you something to control the pain a little in the meantime.
well he did and I wrote him asking about the antibiotic...
Just seems like a long time to see this rd doc yes it is a Teaching hospital they are trying hard to become the Duke of the north.... been building alot of research buildings...
There next project is a brand new 100 million plus building for a new cancer center....
They are trying to keep up with roswell park in BUffalo..
these health systems here are all at each others throats for patients.
for pain I have prednisone... yucky but needed i quess
and tumeric lots of that and boswellia
I still take cmo which while it's not the best it's probably keeping me going till i can get the antibiotic or whatever the rd may decide to put me on.....
I am far from better but the last 2 days have not been as bad
somehow my hand is better... why who knows....
There are only 14 RD's for over 700,000 people here...
thats not counting the metro counties that push that up to about 14 docs for 1 million folks.... uggg.
I often wish this was a bad dream and i could wake up and be me again...
gosh and to think the things that got me upset before this...
If I could wake up and just not feel pain or have my joints stop hurting
I would love to just be me again..........
gosh and i used to worry about dumb things like a gray hair or a wrinkle...... gee now I think god just let me function...
I pray alot more to....
I just try and keep myself from getting to down..
luckily I can keep that stiffness part at bay i know my hand does go stiff in the am sometimes but for far less than 2 minutes.... If I could just find away to not be sick again ...... I wish we could fast forward time 15 years because I bet the treatment by then will be far superior to what we have now....
One thing I read in The Road Back, which I am about halfway through now, is that depression is actually one of the symptoms of RA, not just a response to it. It's good to know, because sometimes I get really seriously depressed, and was actually suicidal when I was first diagnosed. It's good to be aware of the subltle difference because you can recognise that the depression will abate just as the other symptoms tend to. So keep on truckin'!