Rheumatoid Arthritis

Well my insurance company at work it trying to help make everyone healthier by offering step pedometers. They would like us to walk 10,000 steps a day. Sorry not possible here but I am trying to do more.  My step pedometer does say I walk 3000 steps on an average work day where I don't do too much. But 10,000 steps, it would be nice to do that much walking but since I don't know what is causing the odd flare ups, I'll just have to play it one day at a time. I love to go hiking, shopping, and spending time at Dollywood and Dollywood Splash Country, so I'm sure on those days I do that many steps, but I'm often left sore for the next few days. Today I have had even more fun with odd strong pain through my left knee. The oddest part is that it hurts for no reason. I was woke up this morning at 2 am with very horrible pain, yet I walked OK to my bathroom. The pain in strong and it comes and goes. It not just an ouch, it brings tears to my eyes and leaves me praying f...

I had to go to the urgent care today. Yesterday was a very very bad morning. It started out well but at work I got wonderful cold chills and shooting pain in many joints. My lower back, knee, and hip where the top winners of the pain contest. I could have just cried, although that wouldn't have helpped much. It was really hard to keep focus at work. Finally after about two hours I was back to me. If that would have started at home I wouldn't have made it to work, so at least I made it work first. Last night I woke up with extreme knee pain in my left knee. At first I didn't move, but the pain continued. Then I rolled to my side and put a pillow between my knees. Then I grabbed the icyhot, bad idea.. that didn't help at all and the icy part seemed to hurt more. I carefully got up to the bathroom, I was expectin a hard time walking but I could walk on my knee just fine but the knee had this crazy sharp pain that just kept coming and going. In the bathroom I washed off...

It has been an interesting long week. I'm taking predisone which has been kind to give me the "I'm hungry" and "very hot" feeling. My wonderfully monthly period is also about to visit giving me that grumpy and tired feeling. All together just plain not feeling right. Yesterday I had a very weird ordeal happen to my right hand. I was using my mouse right after typing and got a cramp in my right hand. Now I have had cramps before, but you could see this cramp. My pinkie finger was forced under my ringer finger and I just couldn't move my hand. I didn't try too hard either as I could feel a very tight pull, see and feel a mussel on the right side of my right hand. I quickly got up and went to the bathroom to put hot water on my hand. With in a few seconds under the hot water the cramp stopped and my hand snapped back into motion. The pain was too bad, more scary then anything. Now I've work 5 and 1/2 days this week. Only worked half a day toda...

I had the Rituxan infusion on February 28 and on March 20th. I had done this back in 2007, after that treatment everything went well and I had little flare up for a year. Not this time unfortunately. I felt good afterwards,  but I'm currently on the third week of a good flare up. Sadly, I had to miss two days of work this week. I had to rest at home with cyclobenzaprine, tramadol, and prednisone. Thankfully I did have sick time to cover my days off, but I have recently been promoted at work and feel really bad leaving my co-worker short handed at work. The best way to describe how I feel would be to imagine your shoulders and neck mussels as tight as they can be. Pain goes from the should to the elbow off and on. My right hip hurts with pain going down the side. As the meds have helped some my back is feeling better but very sore and my hip has a pinch type pain inside of it. The meds are not my favorite either. The cyclobenzapine is to be used two hours before bed,...