Just curious to know how many of us have a diagnosis of RA and whether people have both AS and RA.
I arrived on KickAS because of a tentative diagnosis of AS and then stayed, even though my diagnosis changed, because of the wonderful support and information available on KA.
So I'm also curious to know if others arrived here for the same reasons.
I have been diagnosed with seronegative rheumatoid arthritis. The early involvement of my shoulders and hips combined with the seronegative status (no elevated rheumatoid factor) were the reasons for the earlier suspicion of AS. I now have involvement of hands, wrists, elbows, knees and toes as well as the original shoulders and hips. The involved joints are perfectly symmetrical (which is quite different that AS). My sternoclavicular joints are also inflamed.
I don't have any spinal involvement or SI joints or heels, although my tailbone is inflamed which led to an early suspicion of SI joints because the pain was in my butt.
For DMARDS, I have so far tried plaquenil, minocycline and now methotrexate. I'm still waiting to determine if the methotrexate is effective - the other two were not.
In addition, I'm taking celebrex and prednisone to keep the inflammation under control until we determine whether the mtx is working.
Looking forward to hearing from other RAers.
