Kickas.org Forums Rheumatoid Arthritis General Discussion #1 RA Web Support Group Useful links

I thought it might be helpful to post some of the useful RA links I have found (and will find) in the RA forum.

The link I'm posting here is one of the best I've found: Diagnosis and Management of Rheumatoid Arthritis.

http://www.aafp.org/afp/2005/0915/p1037.html

Thanks Wendy. Heading there now.

Possi

This link is to the British Columbia Ministry of Health Guidelines and Protocols for diagnosing and managing RA:

http://www.bcguidelines.ca/gpac/guideline_ra.html#recommend1

It includes links to three PDFs: a summary, a patient guide, and a full guideline.

It's well written and quite helpful.

This link is to the Medicine Net article on RA:

http://www.medicinenet.com/rheumatoid_arthritis/article.htm

It includes links to a slide show summarizing safe exercises for RA and a slideshow summary of RA for those who don't want to read all the detail. Personally, I prefer to read all the detailed information because each RA website contains similar information but each one often adds some details that I haven't come across before.

This is the emedicine link. More technical/clinical language for those who appreciate this. Very detailed, particularly around the causes of RA. I appreciated finding this level of detail on the web.

http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/331715-overview

Here's the link to the Roadback Foundation who provide information and resources on the use of antibiotics to treat RA. The link has been posted elsewhere but I thought it would be useful to have it here in the new RA forum:

http://www.roadback.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/home.main.html

The education link is probably the most helpful, especially 'articles' and 'brochure sheets'. Here are the direct links to those pages:

Articles:
http://www.roadback.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/education.sub/subgroup_id/12.html

Brochure Sheets:
http://www.roadback.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/education.sub/subgroup_id/10.html

This link is to the John Hopkins Arthritis Center's information on RA. WARNING: contains some quite graphic images of damaged joints from RA.

http://www.hopkins-arthritis.org/arthritis-info/rheumatoid-arthritis/rheum_clin_pres.html

For those of you still trying to get a definitive diagnosis, this article is very good at distinguishing between the various inflammatory arthritises. Includes a really useful chart. It focuses on seronegative arthritis:

http://medind.nic.in/jac/t03/i3/jact03i3p190.pdf

thanks wendy for all this research. and as you said in the shoutbox, this one will be the most useful for me. did read through it. not much new. but that list for the spondys will be useful for me to take to doctors from now on. and can see why the doctors think spondy fits the best for me as i seem to fit all but the hlab27 gene (but though people with AS are very likely to have it, people with undiff spondy had only a 50:50 shot of having it (from papers i've read) and the thing about it being more prevalent in men, i think they're starting to realize maybe that's not so true, just that a lot of women present differently. however, when i look at the inflam arthritis vs noninflam arthritis, really severe stiffness isn't one of my main symptoms, once i wiggle everything and then get in the shower, i'm pretty good. i wonder if they mean without a shower, but then i wonder why anyone with arthritis wouldn't just make getting a hot bath or shower to start their day their first priority? if you know you're gonna be stiff without it, why go without? still, not having classic symptoms of any one named disease does make the dx difficult, or is it just that the doctors i've seen just aren't well enough versed to recognize what is going on? my current rheumy has even dx'ed me with enthesopathies, so there is also a part of me that wonders, maybe he's trying to do me a favor, by not dx'ing me, makes it more likely that i can still be seen by a place like NIH, mayo, cleveland clinic, whereas if he dx'es me, makes that sort of thing harder to justify to insurance. guess i don't care so much if we can just find drugs that work. lately i've been doing better, wonder if its the LDN or if i'm just between flares? guess the only way to know is if the next flare just doesn't come. but the LDN is not enough, still have to be careful not to overdo things.

anyway, thanks for all your good research, greatly appreciated.

Here's a link to a new article on research into a biomarker that may help doctors tailor treatment to arthritis patients. I'm hoping there'll be follow up information on this before too long:

http://news.oneindia.in/2010/01/30/newbiomarker-may-help-doctors-tailor-treatment-forarthriti.html