Where Do We Start Looking?

We made appointments everywhere to get checked out to see what autoimmune disease I was harboring.

• Spine Clinic:  While waiting for the Gastroenterologist I visited the Spine Clinic to see if we could find out the source of my back, side and hip pain. I thought that back pain was my kidney. It wasn’t and we finally decided it was my hip and spine. We had an MRI done on both my lumbar spine and right hip. A growth was found on my L5 and I had a lumbar epidural steroid injection. This did give me some relief for my back but that hip still hurt. I also already have cervical spinal stenosis and I had an epidural steroid injection for that too.

• Physical Therapy:  After some physical therapy for bursitis in both hips my physical therapist read my CT scan from my hip and told me I had a labral tear in my right hip. First takeaway: Found the pain in my hip. Had no idea the source of the tear.

• My neurologist ordered a brain MRI to see what was causing the pain in my face. Good news, I still have a brain and no tumors. I do have Trigeminal neuralgia  

• Gastroenterologist: My ophthalmologist mentioned Crohn's disease could be the culprit among other autoimmune diseases. I visited a Gastroenterologist who set up both a colonoscopy (check for Crohn’s) and endoscopy to see why I was in so much stomach pain. No Crohns yippee! However, my stomach was covered in small holes that were bleeding. These were around 40 tiny peptic ulcers probably caused by all of the NSAIDs I had taken for the pain I was in. Tylenol just doesn’t cut it for me. He took a biopsy of my stomach. 

This great doctor took a lot of blood tests then as he was leaving our appointment, almost as an afterthought, he ordered one more test. He said it was rare and the hospital lab draw would have to pay a lot of attention to this order. It was for ANCA. Takeaway: Bingo. He found the key to getting into a Rheumotologist.

With all of these tests we have found that I'm a real gem.

Oh, My Goodness, I’m rich!

Silver in the hair

Gold in the teeth

Crystals in the kidney

Sugar in the blood

  Marbles in the knees

Iron in the arteries

Diamonds in the cataracts

-:-             

I never thought I would accumulate such wealth 

......hee hee