Downward Spiral...

Hi Everyone

So I realise that I have been extremely quiet on the blog front recently, but it is because so much has gone on.

In a previous blog post I mentioned that my consultant had decided to increase my dose of methotrexate to 20mg, as 15mg didn’t seem to be working all that well. After two weeks of taking the higher dose, I became so ill that I could not eat at all. I didn’t have a full meal for two weeks and I was lucky if I could even get a third of the way through my food. Also, I was having a really bad flare with my arthritis, pretty much all of my affected joints swelled back up and I had to go back on to crutches.

In the end I emailed my rheumatology nurse and told her everything that was going on. She got in touch with my consultant and got me an emergency appointment for a few days later. I was so grateful at how fast they were to help me, as I was pretty miserable by this point. I had blood test results around this time and recently found out that my inflammation count had risen from 8 to 24, where as it must be under 20.

At the appointment with my consultant, she said it was obvious that the methotrexate was not being absorbed enough, therefore I was to start on methotrexate injections, or metoject as they call it. This would mean that it would go straight in to my bloodstream and hopefully work a bit better. It also means that it would bypass my stomach and stop me from feeling so sick all of the time. There was also mention of starting another drug as well as the metoject, but I’m not sure if that is if the metoject doesn’t work on its own.

The other development was that my skin had broken out in psoriasis up both my arms and on the back of one of my legs. This meant that my consultant could officially diagnose me with psoriatic arthritis. The diagnosis also explained a few other symptoms, such as extreme pain in my right heel. It is pain underneath my foot rather than a joint and I can barely put any weight on my heel at all some days. My consultant explained that with psoriatic arthritis, you can also develop another condition where the tendons can also become inflamed and this tends to start in the foot.

So at the end of my appointment the plan was made to get an appointment with the nurse to learn how to inject myself and then get started on the metoject. I mentioned that I already had an appointment for March 21^st for a check up with the nurse, so my consultant said that she would try get me in sooner, but if not I will have to wait until then. In the mean time I was to reduce my dose of MTX so that I wasn’t feeling as sick, but this also meant that I may be in a bit more pain temporarily. So now I just had to wait for my appointment...