We have a Dx & a Treatment Plan

ANSWER: Spondyloarthritis with possible psoriatic variant (Psoriatic Arthritis w/Spondylitis) TREATMENT PLAN: 0.6cc Methotrexate (low lose of a chemo drug) weekly sub-cutaneous, 200 mcg Folate daily, 200mg Hydroxychloroquine (anti-malarial drug) daily. Clinoril as needed (and hopefully not need Ultram, Cymbalta, or Percocet soon). I'm still learning what this is b/c I skipped over it in my research. Guess that's why I'm not the dr., huh. Anyhoooo, she picked out all the spots on the x-rays that told her what she needed to know. Boy, once she pointed them out I was like , I didn't see that before. Based on my negative RA & ANA tests, patient history and clinical exam, she says Spondyloarthritis. She said that it is often mistaken for Fibromyalgia b/c it cause tendinitis near the pressure points used to Dx Fibro. She will wean me off the Cymbalta once we are confident the treatment plan is working. I might request to stay on a lose dose until after the adoption/post-adoption let down have passed. I think I still need the extra boost emotionally (especially after last week/weekend). I am to start to wean off the Ultram and try to only do the Clinoril. She upped my Clinoril to 3x daily for a week and if my left elbow and hip don't improve she wants to do a corticosteriod shot ( !). We did catch this early enough to hopefully delay further joint damage and to prevent future joint damage. The goal is to get the inflammation down and keep it down. From what I gather, remission is when the inflammation stays down (Tracie/Karrie/Heather correct me if I'm wrong). This is a progressive auto-immune disease, but Dr. T seemed to think that we caught it early enough and there are enough treatments out or coming out to help keep things under control. The caveat is that to accomplish this, they have to dink with my immune system. Oh joy of all joys. Methotrexate will somehow suppress and tweek my immune system to get it to calm down. Really don't quite understand how all this works, but I will be learning soon, that's for sure. She gave me the first shot today and showed both K & I how to do the shot. I think I can do it myself, wasn't too bad. At least it's not 50x a day. If not, I'll just visit friends in the medical community once a week. Good thing I have no uterus, so we don't have to worry about prenancy issues. I will have b/w every at 6 and 12 weeks to make sure that my bone marrow isn't screwing up my blood cells. Ah, the risks and benefits. At this point I'm thinking the benefits out weigh the risks. As Dr. C said, we might not like the Dx, but at least we have a treatment plan. I might be doin' marathons come September (by my birthday!!)!!!! {fingers crossed/praying} Just think, I could be in remission and doin' fine when I hold our Ladybug for the first time. Now wouldn't that be a wonderful experience.