Well, Crapola!

A few weeks ago, I posted about what my pain medication may hide, yesterday I found the truth. Call me slow about some things but I had to do some thinking.

I have RA, fibromyalgia, bad back, etc - all sorts of nice things that cause pain. So I get the good drugs. I have this awesome pain patch that masks 99% of it. It wasn't until I was an idiot a few weeks ago and forgot to change my pain patch I had no idea how much pain.

The thinking process I had to go through was what was all that pain from and why is it important? I know several people that have RA as well, my mother and an old friend. Both of them are on injected biologics for their RA and nothing else. My mother has other issues and has pain meds. My friend does not have pain meds. Her RA is only treated with a biologic.

More thinking. Then I thought, was my treatment of methotrexate and leflunomide supposed to be taking care of all my RA issues and stopping progression? I didn't really know. In recent visits with my rheumatologist she had been concerned why my knuckles were sore (which they shouldn't be because of my treatment) and she had tweaked my treatment a few times.

Finally, on Friday I decided this has gone on long enough. I sent a message to my rheumatologist (who doesn't work on Fridays) and her nurse called me back. She asked me a bunch of questions. I asked her one question - is my treatment supposed to be controlling all my RA so that I don't have significant pain? Her answer was yes. So I knew, my pain meds were hiding much more aggressive RA than previously thought.

Monday, I got a call on when I could come in to see the doctor or one of her PAs as soon as possible. I actually got into see her yesterday. She needs to go to the next level in treatment and talk to my oncologist because of my cancer history. Some biologics have a TNF factor hidden inside (the T stands for Tumor) and she doesn't want to give me a recurrence (which happened to one of her patients a few years back).

But wait:
First, in the interim she wants me to try prednisone again to reduce inflammation. Start really slowly so I do not react again and if I do react I need to call her.
Second, she needs to talk to my oncologist about her thoughts on my medical history and RA treatment.
Third, she isn't going to change anything until my knee is completely healed after my October 5 arthroscopy. So this will be mid to late November before this change happens.

What all this means is now I am no longer in the mild to moderate RA club, but in the moderate to severe RA club. Another club I don't want to belong to.