Thursday, August 12, 2010

My Eroding Hands

I saw my new rheumatologist yesterday. He used ultrasound to look at my hands. There were erosions in my bones. I saw them myself, lighting up the screen. It looked like my finger bones with dental cavities - if you can picture that. I said to Dr., "But I feel fine, how can this be?" He said that RA can still be very active even if I have no pain. He said that I'm not in remission.

I was pretty bummed yesterday, but today I'm feeling better. I'm not sure what it all means. As long as I feel fine, I'll keep going on with my life.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I know how you feel, I am also a scientist with RA and the moment when I sat there looking at some damage in my wrist joints that I hadn't expected to see was a really demoralizing moment. Its hard to feel like you're hanging in there and doing ok and maybe even feeling pretty good, and then seeing evidence that maybe you're not. Damn sneaky stubborn disease.

The funny part about looking at the scans is that I look at medical images all day long, for work (maybe not of hands, but at least I have an eye for it), and so I immediately, and accurately, pointed out the part of the scan that looked abnormal to me, and my doctor looked at me with a really strange expression and just said "wait, exactly what do you do, again?".

Jenny F. Scientist said...

Er, suck. I'm glad you're feeling well, but ick.

Unbalanced Reaction said...

Well, sh!t. You keep rockin'.

Kate said...

I'm sorry to hear this. Your assessment sounds right though. Keep taking care of yourself as you know how. You are a strong, intelligent person with a good support system.