I saw my new pain specialist today. She was very thorough and gave me the following suggestions that will help with both RA and FM:
There is a magazine called Fibromyalgia Aware. They also have a web site.
She recommended Glusomine Chondrstin (oh, however you spell it). She said if it doesn't work after 3 months, then stop because it won't ever work for you. Also, she suggested Costco as a place to get high quality and good prices.
She also wanted me to try something called MetaNx, a B vitamin.
And good ole Fish Oil made the list. I've tried that one but it upsets my stomach. She said it comes in powder form that you can mix with a drink and that is usually easier on the stomach. I know that eating salmon helps me so I'm definitely going to try that.
I told her the water therapy was really helping me. She said that a lot of insurance companies, including mine will sometimes give you a membership to a Fitness Center to use a pool for a year because it costs them so much less than PT. She also said the the Senior Citizen Center here has all this for free. Applies also for memberships to YMCAs. She said what you have to do is research what's near you ahead of time and then talk with your doctor about it. I know this would help a lot of you who cannot afford either PT or a membership.
She was really professional and went over everything, a far cry from the other pain specialists that I've experienced. Of course, I was having a low pain day so it wasn't a good one for evaluating my pain. She is sending over a request for a cervical, thoracic and lumbar MRI. Yeah! Finally, someone is paying attention to my nerve and spine pain. She wants to rule out AS. But I think this is really important for me for the nerve problems I'm having.
So nice to work with a real professional. She read everything that I brought with me, my medical history, MRI reports and then asked tons of questions. She did a full exam too, something the other pain specialist did not do. I was quite impressed with her. So you might want to look for those things in a pain specialist. She doesn't really want to deal with meds because they have so many people that need the injections. So, I might be back at my Primary. She did want to cautiously start me on the morphine at 15 mg 2x a daily. This is double what my primary had tried. She said it was quite a leap to go from Vicodin to that high a level of a pain killer which is how I felt.
Hope this helps someone else.
I am glad someone is finally helping you, you so deserve it!
I do remember that when I belonged to the YMCA that they had a water aerobic class for arthritis people and all you had to do was have a note from your doctor and it was free. I remember it being in the middle of the afternoon on weekdays so it doesn't work for me but for those of you who don't work, its worth checking into!
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