New To This Site But Long Term RA'er
Hello I am new to this site, I have had RA for 30 years but actually had it from childhood only undiagnosed.
I went down the path of being told I had exhaustion, glandular fever, the flu, different things for each flare up over my teenage years and into my 20's then when I had a big flare up in my mid 20's. Dr's finally started to really look into it and it still took a few years to get diagnosed with RA and fibromyalgia. So, I was coping ok for a few years then got other illnesses added on, osteoporosis (possibly from the high doses of cortisone steroids) diabetes, diabetic neuropathy, cataracts, teeth removed (again possibly due to medications) heart disease, degenerative disc disease and now panic attacks anxiety to name a few.
We live in the country so any doctor visit means a long trip sometimes 4 hours or more.
As I'm now in my 50's I have had this for a long time and been coping "I think" quite well but lately I seem to be not doing as well. It takes all my strength to simply get out of bed in the mornings then I wonder why I bothered as everything hurts.
I went through a stage of having severe reactions to many of the drugs tried and cannot take any of the non steroidal anti-inflammatories so that made it hard, and I have only just in the past 5 yrs found a good Rheumatologist and have a good local doctor, so am making headway there. Although, I am on a heap of medications have been looking on this site for a while and get posts on my Facebook page and I like the community seen here so I finally decided to join. Thank you for reading my rant,and hello fellow RA'ers and I too think the name should be changed to RD or something anything that dose not contain the word Arthritis.
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