I have held off blogging about my appt. w/the rheumatologist as it really upset me. Before the meeting I had a good idea that I was going to be told they had found nothing. I had all the test results and knew that my liver enzymes were elevated, and that the radiologist hadn't thought I had AS, but I was also still having pain and my eyes have continued to flare up.
The hubby came with and met me at the doc's office. The nurse called me back, went over a few things with me, took my blood pressure and found out that it was high (which is incredibly rare for me as I always have below normal blood pressure). I can't say that I was any more or less stressed than I normally am for a doctor's appt. and in fact seemed more resigned than anything. Hey, call me a pessimist but I had a gut feeling.
Dr. B breezed in and had me come sit on the really uncomfortable, hard, plastic chair next to his computer. Why they have chairs like that in an arthritis clinic I will never understand. Anyways. He proceeds to fly through my test results, my MRI images, and xrays. Seriously, I think he spent all of 2 secs. looking at each one and that is no exaggeration. This was not going to go well. During all of this he informed me that my SI joints were completely normal (despite six other doctors and radiologists saying otherwise) and that there was really no reason to keep seeing him. I then asked about my pinky and knees swelling up and the pain from them.
"Well you didn't tell me about that!" he said. Yeah I did. At our first meeting. I circled and colored in all the spots that had been giving me pain/swelling/redness. You didn't look at it. But of course it was my fault.
He has me undress and change into a gown. All the while I'm railing to my husband about how this is stupid. Obviously the rheumy thinks it's all in my head, nothing is wrong with me, the typical woe-is-me kinda shit. I'm pissed at this point. Earlier the rheumy had compared the fact that I said my low back DID indeed get inflamed and feel hot to a mother who feels her child's head and says, "Oh, little Jimmy has a fever! We need to take him to the doctor." Are you f'in kidding me? I am not that type of mom. Never have been. I told the doc this. Did it matter? No. Remember, he's smarter than me...and I'm a woman.
I crawl up onto the exam table and wait. I'm upset and poor hubby knows this. He knows that I am shutting down and he hates this. I hate this. It is what it is. Dr. B comes back in and I briefly discuss my SI joints "popping" and "cracking" to which he tells me that it's impossible. Sorry dude...there's some snap, crackle, and pop stuff happening back there--so it's not impossible. Finally he relents and informs me that it may be the ligaments. Whatever. Just don't treat me as if I don't know my own body. Then he starts giving me the once over. Again, he spends just a few seconds manipulating my joints, pushing them, and pulling them, and not seeming to take notice when I wince in pain, or show obvious displeasure. At one point he pushed on my right side, somewhat under my ribcage, and told me to breath. That was tough to do. The left hurt as well. He said, "oh" or something to that effect...like he felt something...but didn't elaborate. He asked if I had ever had my liver enzymes come back elevated before and I told him I hadn't.
At this point I feel dejected and I tell the doctor this. He says I'm insulting him when I say that I don't understand what the point is of continuing to look for something if all my other tests have come back fine--I'm just waiting for him to tell me it's all in my head. "I'm not a confrontational kind of person," he says. No shit? Me either. But you've pushed me, and your stupid colleagues that treat me like I'm an idiot have pushed me, so now you feel my rath. I snapped. Nothing freakish, no yelling, just saying how I felt. And I cried. If the man had just said, "Look, obviously something is going on because some of your test results have come back 'off' and your eyes keep flaring up, plus you have other symptoms that aren't normal. We're gonna figure this out," then everything would've been fine and I never would've broken down. He didn't do that though. He just kept insinuating that every other person/doctor/therapist that had told me something he disagreed with was wrong. Dr. B--end all be all of rheumatology.
In the end he ordered an assload of tests. I was really pissed when he asked me, "Has anyone checked for RA or Lupus with you?" Anyone as in YOU--the guy paid to do this shit? The guy who has already seen me twice, ordered a ton of tests, and yet NEVER checked for some obvious stuff? No. No they haven't. I left the office with an appt. scheduled for another frickin' 5 wks. away, went next door, waited forever, hubby had to go back to work, and then had about 10 tubes of blood drawn. They made me drink orange juice before I left for fear that I would get lightheaded due to the amount they drained from me.
The results are supposed to be back in a week or so. Once again I'll head over to the hospital to pick them up and see if I can make sense of them.
As a side note I found a condition called Sacroiliac Joint Dysfunction which matches my symptoms as far as that is concerned. So who knows...maybe it is a ligament laxity issue for that problem. Either way it sucks and it hurts and it seems like more is going on as well. And yet I wait some more.
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