Time To See A Rheumatologist

Over the last year or so I’ve been having some problems with joint pain in my hands. I’ve had three “flare ups” of joint pain since last fall. This time was, I guess you could say, the last straw for me. It’s gotten to the point that some days I can’t really handle the pain anymore. I’ve been waking up again with painful hands and swollen fingers. There’s also been a few times that my ankles and feet hurt enough in the middle of the night that they’ll wake me up and then I have a hard time getting back to sleep. I’ve also been in enough pain at times I was pretty much in tears and I finally decided that I had enough.

I went and saw another doctor at my doctor’s office last week(my regular doctors schedule was full). I explained to her what was going on and she feels like something is going on with my immune system and my joints. She ordered a bunch of labs to check for Rheumatoid Arthritis, Gout and my ANA factor. These tests all came back within normal limits. The only things that were high were my glucose(I wasn’t fasting) and my WBC count(which I already expected to be high because my Indeterminate Colitis was flaring). I also got some xrays of my hands done to check for joint damage and there wasn’t any found. This doctor decided to get me a referral to see a Rheumatologist.

I called my doctors office yesterday to figure out what was going on with my referral. I hadn’t heard anything yet from the Rheumatologist and I wanted to make sure that the referral was sent and it had been. So I called the Rheumatologist office to see what was going on. I apparently got accepted as a patient on Tuesday but when I was talking to the scheduler I was told that I would be placed on a waiting list to schedule my appointment with the doctor. Which I thought was pretty odd. It also made me nervous because I hadn’t asked how long that waiting list was or when they thought they would call me.

And then I got a surprise Wednesday at dinner. It was the Rheumatologist office calling me to schedule my appointment! I get in to see them Aug 18th after I’m back home from training for work. I’m so very happy about this and hope that we will be able to figure out what is going on with my joints. I hope that this appointment goes well, that I can advocate for myself well and that I have a good doctor.