My Meniere’s Diagnosis

Another Spin, More Joint Pain and Possibly Rheumatoid Arthritis

February 19, 2010 4:24 pm admin Doctors Visit, symptoms, Vertigo

What a fun winter it’s been! (Slight sarcasm.) I enjoy snow and we’ve had it in spades this year in a way we haven’t seen for many years. I haven’t really been able to enjoy it much though for the joint aches and pains which seem to be worse in the cold. After my last post I had another vertigo attack on January 6th. How do I remember the date? It’s funny – I usually have a hard time remembering what I had for lunch yesterday but I can recall the dates of my attacks for quite some time. I remember it was a Wednesday and I had to cancel the afternoon portion of my schedule to get to the house and crash. Thursday was a wash as well. I started a round of prednasone that day as well. My joint aches seemed better over that following weekend. Which unfortunately has made me suspect that this may be Rheumatoid Arthritis coming on.

I finally had an appointment with the Rhuematologist almost two weeks ago now and had another round of blood drawn for yet more tests. (7 this time… I think that’s a new personal record.) They prescribed meloxicam as an anti inflammatory and I was told not to take ibuprofin while I was on it. I was also told it would take about a month for me to tell if it was working or not.

Since then, I got another allergy shot and now am feeling a bit low the tail end of this week (as usually happens after the allergy shots…) I just get so tired in the days following the shots…. it’s hard to describe, but everything seems to be fatiguing. Well, my joint aches are worse right now too. I don’t know if it’s the weather change or the shots. I’m beginning to think that the shots may correlate with more aches and pains.

I had a call from the Doctors office and called back today and while they didn’t detail the results from the blood tests they said that it was a potential connective tissue disease and they would talk about it more at my next appointment (which is in March.) So, I looked just to confirm what was a “connective tissue disease” and sure enough…. Lupus, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Sjogrens Syndrome and a couple others are in the same family of ailments.

At my appointment he had speculated a few possibilities. 1) Since it coincided with having H1N1 it could be lingering joint inflammation from that infection – it’s not unheard of for such things to last a year after the event. 2) the beginnings of Rheumatoid Arthritis or 3) Siliac Disease – which as I understand it is a severe form of Gluten Allergy. But, from the testing now it’s sounding as though we’ve found the beast behind door #2.

Yes, I’m down today. Of course, I was also down the day my first round of testing came back and everything was normal. I started questioning my sanity and if all of this pain wasn’t just my mind making it up for me. I can’t win – it sounds as though it was what I expected and I’m down. They also said the tests are not conclusive, but for that matter it could just be due to being in an early stage of things.

RIght now I’m REALLY hoping that in the next couple weeks I’ll notice an improvement with this medicine. So far it doesn’t seem to be an improvement, but even the drug information said 2-3 weeks (although we’re closing in on 2 weeks.) I guess what I’m really scared of is if it is related to the shots. I really don’t want to go back to where I was before I started the shots. With the near constant ear pressure and roaring, dizziness for weeks on end. While they certainly haven’t cured me as the January spin proved, I seem to have found an equilibrium of sorts. (I had been delayed getting a shot due to snow before the cycle that led to the last vertigo.) I seem to be better off if I go exactly every two weeks.

But then, if that’s encouraging and leading to the joint pain? Hurt all the time or give up your hearing and balance in one ear. There’s a good menu of options. It’s like the do you want it to hurt now or later commercial…… except more along the lines of do you want to ache now or be nauseous and deaf now? I’m not sure which to choose, but I’d probably have to choose deaf and nauseous. If anything else maybe that illustrates how bad these aches have been. Sometimes I want to make a request for a reward for the whereabouts of the person with a voodoo doll and pin.

I know there are a lot of people worse off and I suppose there’s a lesson in all of this, perhaps to slow down and not pour so much time into work. I wonder if the stress from that is what has brought all of this on. In spite of that, I just need a day to be down about things I suppose and think through them…. and get ready for what comes next.