I’ve said it before and I will say it again, nothing is ever simple.
So… the blood work showed that most of the inflammation in my body at the moment is not caused by Lupus, which is both good and bad. It’s good because if it were caused by Lupus we would have to start worrying about widespread organ involvement, so yay for not having that! However, it does mean that we have to narrow the cause of the inflammation to figure out how to treat me.
Furthermore, we can’t put me on immunosuppressants which might fix it until we know what’s wrong with the lungs, and how much is being caused by the lung problem as opposed to a rheumatological problem. So the rheumatologist has to wait a bit on the lung investigations… (Didn’t she say she wanted to find out what was to do with the Lupus for her stuff? Circles, circles….)
He did a thorough physical exam of me, and believes that much of my current pain is more muscular than joint– though there were a few groupings of joints where he found sinovitis.
Therefore, for the majority of the pain, it’s no wonder that the anti-inflammatories and narcotic painkillers aren’t working. The muscle pain part of Lupus is more similar to fibromyalgia, which operates in a very different way.
Therefore, he has started me on a new drug, which I will begin tonight– it was too late yesterday to collect from the chemist. This new drug will hopefully allow me to start being able to walk on the level again– which will be helpful to healing that type of pain, and can help us narrow down the other inflammatory processes.
Based on my blood work and presentation, he has also decided to start investigating me for another, new auto-immune disorder. Sjogren’s Disease, more common in Northern Europeans, is quite difficult to diagnose and is often missed. Along with Reynaud’s, it’s a common disorder to get once you have Lupus already. His investigations, he estimates, will take 3-6 months.
Like the lung consultant appointment the week before, this appointment was somewhat unhelpful. The inflammation markers likely were a result of Lupus disease activity, because the same markers are being used in different ways by my new consultant, who is on the front line of autoimmune research. However, this doctor was absolutely correct in picking up that there was something going on with a new illness, and since this appointment, I have been conclusively diagnosed with Sjogren’s, which causes excessive dryness because the immune system attacks moisture-producing centres in the body, like mucus membranes. Every doctor has their own contribution in the end!
Wondering what’s going on with these posts? Check out my explanation HERE!
This Isolation Life 