Kickas.org Forums Ankylosing Spondylitis General Discussion #1 AS Web Support Group My new proposal!

Here's my two cents. After years and years of misdiagnoses starting with very early on.
I went from your just stiff, Arthritis, RA, Nothing you need more exercise( he had MRIs to prove it). I took their pills and listened. Tried the exercises which caused more inflamation and pain compounding each session. In the end I felt they couldn't help and that it must be psycological, was I a hypochondriac? I quit seeing Doctors for about 4 years and started taking alieves. It worked as well as anything they'd done and was alot cheaper and didn't waste my time or theirs. So I say if the Doctor isn't helping the problem then he's part of it and a person should just move on and find another Doctor. It's our problem not theirs, but if the Doc don't know then he should send you to a specialist who might. My Rhuemy knew when I walked in what was wrong.

I hate to think the other guy in the back of the class cutting up with me was one of your Doctors, haha.

Allan

I can say I'm one of the luckier ones here, in that early on at least I was DXed with something besides IAIYH. Bearing in mind this was the early 80s and the prevalent thought was that women didn't get AS,and I had no fusion at that time, just a lot of pain and inflammation not only in my back but in peripheral joints, especially my left ankle, at least I got a DX of atypical RA, atypical because of the back pain and stiffness and the fact no tests really showed RA. Fast forward 20 years, fusion of SIs, AS DX. But for that 20 years I was at least taken a bit seriously by the medical folk, even though all they had to offer was NSAIDS, which I wouldn't take on a regular basis because of the side effects. As the pain got worse over the years I should have checked back in with a rheumy but I still believed all they could do for me was offer NSAIDS, my GP finally convinced me to go see a rheumy. The advantage? A proper DX of AS, based not only on symptoms but on radiological findings of fusion, but before the X-rays he said (based on what he could see going on by the tests done in the office) that I had either undifferentiated spondylarthropy or AS. And better meds for another thing, muscle relaxers to ease the night time stiffness and resultant broken sleep patterns and sleep deprivation, and finally I was put on Arava (after bombing out on everything else cheaper) and now have had 18 months of blessed remission. The only "bad" doc I had was when my regular doc was out of town and I ruptured a disc, had loss of use of my right leg, was in incredible pain, and she did...nothing. Told me to take Tylenol!!!! Told me I couldn't have AS because women didn't get it. Didn't order an MRI to see the extent of the damage. So I lived in that pain until my rheumy was available and he was furious with the doctor who did so little, said I should actually report her, which for a doctor to say about another doctor is rare to say the least. He immediately ordered the MRI and prescribed some heavy duty pain meds which helped to at least take the edge off the agony from the ruptured disc.

Cheryl

Dogs don't care if the house is clean

I just wanted to publically apologize to Patty, I seem to have missed the joke - again.

I'm afraid other generalized anti-doc posts upset me and I let that cloud my judgement here.

I'm sorry patty.

Loz

And you're forgiven.

Hey Patty! In whatever manner this post arose, I still find it a worthy discussion overall and wanted to voice my 2 cents.

Rhetorical Q's for all:
Like Loz, generalized anti-doctor posts disturb me (not saying that this was one ) for one main reason. How on earth can we expect perfection from a field that is in perpetual evolution?

I never met my 2 grandparents who died of TB. In the early stages, docs would have misdiagnosed many. Then the sick lived in isolation for years to die or survive, while they searched for a cure. Imagine for a moment how many different treatments they would've explored along the way to finally finding the answer? The question is... should I dislike doc's for robbing me of my grandparents? Or should I praise doc's for saving my generation from this plight?

And for the sake of analogy,... yet another question. Does your personal financial planner keep current with all (thousand's) of mutual funds available, or does he track about 300 or so, struggling to recommend the best? And if he's good, does he also track the performance of all the fund managers and ceo's, as they come and go? Do you know if he's any good at his job? Is it realistic to expect he can guarantee your return will be better than all the options? Are you willing to wait for retirement to find out? Life is a gamble.

Okay, I think I've rambled enough... that is all!

mig