There are some sick people out there – and I’m not talking about the ones with RA!
March 25, 2014 at 10:00 am | Posted in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) | 3 CommentsTags: 'National Institute for Health and Care Excellence', CBC, computer virus, crime, NICE, spam, virus
I got this in my email yesterday morning, purporting to be from NICE (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence).
Dear [email address removed] We have been sent a sample of your blood analysis for further research. During the complete blood count (CBC) we have revealed that white blood cells is very low, and unfortunately we have a suspicion of a cancer. Wite Blood cells 1200 Low Hemoglobin 12 Normal Platelets 19000 Low We suggest you to print out your CBC test results and interpretations in attachment below and visit your family doctor as soon as possible Sincerely,Dr. Avery Ernie National Institute for Health and Care Excellence
My first instinct was to laugh – for so many reasons. Honestly, can’t these spammers do their research properly? NICE doesn’t stand for that at all – and your average doctor can probably spell ‘white’ too. Then there’s the fact that NICE don’t do any research or analyse any samples. (All they are there for, as far as I can see, is to decide if drugs are too expensive for patients to benefit from!) Not to mention the fact that blood samples don’t go whizzing around the country for ‘further research’ without my permission, and when they do, since I’m part of an epidemiological study, they are anonymised.
However, my second reaction was absolute fury – I presume the ‘attached’ was some sort of virus or other nasty, so what if this had gone to some really vulnerable person, not overly familiar with silly spamming tactics and actually awaiting the results of blood tests for possible cancer? The last thing someone in that situation needs is some moron to cause their computer to crash or steal their bank details or whatever other nasty things these people do these days!
I was reading this morning about medieval punishment practices; a seller of off wine for instance would be hauled to the pillory, forced to drink a draft of his off wine and have the rest poured over his head before being locked in to the pillory - most unpleasant – but too good for these people, I can’t help thinking! I shall be daydreaming of suitable ways to punish these people if they’re ever caught! <evil grin>
A day (or two) in my life with RA
March 23, 2014 at 9:58 pm | Posted in arthrits, rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia, joint pai, Me, rheumatoid arthritis (RA) | 19 CommentsTags: aches, autoimmune arthritis, blog carnival, joint pain, knee, NHS, pain, physical therapy, physio, physiotherapy, R.A., RA, rhematoid arthritis, Rheumatoid arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis (RA), rheumatology, sleep, stiffness, stress, tiredness, WAAD, WAAD blog carnival, work, World Autoimmune Arthritis Day
This post will be part of the Word Autoimmune Arthritis Day Blog Carnival. WAAD is May 19th 2014 but you can sign up for it now over at the site. This year’s theme is “A Day in the Life of an Autoimmune Arthritis Patient.” I hope I’m not cheating, but I’m going to describe two days – one just post diagnosis and one post-”control” where I am now!
4:00 am A day in March 2008
Wake up hurting – everything’s hurting. My neck and shoulders are very stiff, my back aches, my feet are killing me, one arm is numb and the other has pins and needles going from shoulder to finger-tips – but oddly only the little and ring finger.
Worry – a lot. Come on, I was diagnosed as ‘likely’ are in November last year, and definitely in February - so how come it’s still not sorted. OMG, what if it never does get sorted? Am I going to end up a wheelchair? Will I cope? Will hubby cope?
And where the heck is that physio appointment they promised me months ago?
4:00 am A day in March 2014
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…..
7:00 am March 2008
Wake up feeling completely un-refreshed and cursing myself for having spent an hour in the middle of the night worrying instead of sleeping. Worry some more as I creak my way gradually out of bed, gently testing bits of me to see how mobile they are. The relief of shaking off the pins and needles and then plunging my hands into warm water is enormous.
7:00 am March 2014
Wake up, blinking the ‘sleep’ out of my eyes. Slight stiffness. Hubby draws the curtains and says, ‘How’s the Penguin?’ ‘Stiff and achy,’ I reply, but then I realise that this is nothing to how it felt a few years ago, really NOTHING, and instantly feel a bit better.
7:30 am March 2008
Take a hydroxychloroquine and a diclofenac and wonder if they’re helping or not. I know I have to wait another couple of months to find out. It’s frustrating!
7:30 am March 2014
Take a hydroxychloroquine and an ‘arcoxia’ cox-2 inhibitor. I had to stop taking the diclofenac eventually after a nasty stomach upset – the arcoxia are supposed to much worse for the stomach, but so far don’t seem to be worrying mine!
8:00 am March 2008
The stiffness is just starting to think about wearing off. My left knee is very swollen and I hobble out to my car using a stick, to head off to work. I’m wondering how I’ll make it through a whole day!
8:00 am March 2014
Stiffness? What stiffness? Did I say I was stiff and achy this morning? Heavens! I’d forgotten. That wore off in about ten minutes.
9:00 am March 2008
Work - chat to colleague – drink strong coffee – work some more. Try to remember to MOVE because otherwise I freeze into place and struggle to get out of my chair when I need to later.
9:00 am March 2014
Work – chat to colleagues – drink decaffeinated coffee (this change has nothing to do with the RA, but I have rosacea and the symptoms of that are drastically decreased by drinking only decaf coffee rather than ‘caffeinated’), work some more. Move when I want to – it’s not a particular issue any more.
12:00 pm March 2008
Strewth I’m stiff – I got a bit too involved in some interesting work and haven’t moved out of my chair for an hour. Now I’m in the embarrassing situation of needing a ‘comfort break’ rather urgently and thinking it’s going to take me five minutes to un-stiffen enough to get there!
Time for the next diclofenac. Oh no! I’ve left them at home! Mad dash home in the car to get one, and then back to work.
12:00 pm March 2014
Lunch time – get up, stretch a bit, possibly say ‘creak’, which makes my ‘Junior Penguin’ colleagues chuckle, but really I’m quite mobile. Grab a bit of lunch and go for a mile walk – I know it should be longer … and faster … but it’s about what I can manage comfortably in the time I can spare and my knees aren’t right, though much better than they were a few years ago.
Happily no lunch-time tablets any-more – as life-style changes go, this one has had a surprising amount of impact ! I’d really hate to have to go back to trying to remember lunch-time tablets again!
3:00 pm March 2008
Really wondering if I can last until five. If I was on my own I’d be out of here – but I’ve got an employee now and I feel I should set a good example so I stay.
3:00 pm March 2014
Wow – I love this job – time for a bit of a coffee break and then back to some really interesting transcription about language usage … followed, for a bit of a change, by some transcription about sheep diseases! Variety – that’s what I love!
5:00 pm March 2008
‘I’m tired and I wanna go home’ but we’re really busy and I’ve promised someone to get some work back to them this week – I’d better stay a bit longer, even though I feel soooooo tired and achy!
5:00 pm March 2014
I’m outa here – life’s too short! My way of working these days is to delegate or subcontract what I can’t fit in between 8am and 5pm Monday to Friday. I’ve got about 15 hobbies (and one hubby… and friends) and I want time to enjoy them all… especially as, let’s be honest, I don’t know how long I’ll be able to carry on with some of my hobbies, especially those involving a lot of walking or using my hands! I don’t feel negative about it though – things are going well at the moment and I’m making the most of my free time!
6:00 pm March 2008
Still at work.
6:00 pm March 2014
Just leaving a friend’s house. I’ve popped round for a post-work chat and coffee. Feeling pretty fine.
7:30 pm March 2008
Just about manage to get some supper on the table. I only arrived home half an hour ago so it’s ‘oven fish and chips’. 7.5g of methotrexate tonight, with another diclofenac, another hydroxychloroquine and a lansoprazole (stomach settling tablet).
7:30 pm March 2014
We’ve eaten already – I like to eat early and have the evening to play in – especially as I’m usually in bed by 9:00 pm these days – I find an early night makes a huge difference to my general well-being.
Tablets were 17.5g of methotrexate (yeah, it’s gone up a lot but I don’t care – it’s working, and there’s still room for it to go up a bit more … although I do worry sometimes about what happens if/when I’m up to 25g and there’s nowhere else to go because my symptoms are too mild to get anti-TNFs etc. on the NHS!), and another hydroxychloroquine and a lansoprazole.
9:00 pm March 2008
Getting ready for bed – head still buzzing with what’s happening at work, worries about health, worries that I’m not finding time to do the things I love and speak to the people I love, worries, worries, worries. Heaven knows when I’ll get to sleep. Read a book for a bit to try to take my mind of it.
9:00 pm March 2014
In bed sipping a cup of decaf coffee that hubby’s just made me. Feeling satisfied that I’ve done a bit of Spanish ‘homework’ and managed quite a chunk of embroidery and a bit of crochet this evening, while watching an interesting documentary on the telly and discussing it with hubby later in some depth. Reading a good book on my iPad and feeling very relaxed.
10:00 pm March 2008
Oh no – I really don’t feel sleepy. I’ll read some more and try to relax. ‘Come on Penguin – light’s out’ says Hubby. ‘Just another five minutes’ I say, knowing he’ll be asleep in four and I can carry on reading!
10:00 pm March 2014
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…..
11:00 pm March 2008
Better put the light out. Toss, turn, toss, turn.
11:00 pm March 2014
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…
1:00 am March 2008
At last … zzzzzzzzzzzz…..
1:00 am March 2014
Zzzzzzzzzzzz…
2:00 am March 2014
Wake up – stiff, in pain, pins and needles – wriggle about until I feel vaguely comfortable, lie awake for 20 minutes and eventually drift off to sleep.
2:00 am March 2014
Wake up – roll over – zzzzzzzzzzz…………….
And so another day starts in the life of Pollyanna Penguin …
Paracetamol (Tylenol) has a cumulative effect – heck, why didn’t I know that?
March 6, 2014 at 1:28 pm | Posted in arthrits, rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia, joint pai, fibromyalgia, Me, rheumatoid arthritis (RA) | 4 CommentsTags: cumulative, cumulative effect, Dr Chris Moore, fibromyalgia, pain, paracetamol, Rheumatoid arthritis, tylanol
I woke up this morning and said to hubby, ‘Yay! Good news! I didn’t need to take any paracetamol last night and I don’t need them this morning either! Isn’t that great.’ He agreed it was great. (He’s nice like that.) 11 am today and I was STILL feeling fine – hurrah, I thought, this dratted flare is finally over. Then, out of the blue, bam, agonising stabbing pains in my ankle. Then the light dawned – oh dear – I bet paracetamol has a cumulative effect.
I’m a bit of an idiot really. I KNEW it had a cumulative effect from the point of view of overdosing, and if has that then it’s likely to have a cumulative effect for pain too I suppose! Feeling a bit silly now!
Anyway, there’s a fascinating article here by Dr Chris More, a fibromyalgia sufferer her/himself (doesn’t specify gender on site, so far as I can see!) Actually, I’ve had a wee browse around the site and I think it’s a great resource for anyone with pain issues, not just fibromyalgia sufferers, so I will be adding it to my blogroll too!
Breathtaking incompetence … but I’m glad … no, really …
February 27, 2014 at 7:02 pm | Posted in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) | 6 CommentsTags: arthritis, doctor, folic acid, GP, joint pain, medicine, NHS, R.A., RA, rhematoid arthritis, Rheumatoid arthritis, rheumatology
I’m Pollyanna right? I can do this glad-game thing! OK, I’m glad I’ve had to go to the surgery and the chemist three times this week because it’s given me an opportunity to enjoy more of the beautiful spring weather (in between the showers). I’m glad the doctor completely screwed up my last prescription in three different ways, because otherwise I wouldn’t have had that lovely experience I’m so glad about. I’m glad that I had to go in to the surgery reception tonight and point out that even after a conversation with the doctor yesterday, he had not sorted out the correct repeat date for my folic acid, because if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have had that amusing conversation with the receptionist about kicking her cat.
Hmm … doesn’t sound too convincing, does it, really? Well I am at least trying – but it’s very trying, especially as I’m still at the tail end of a flare.
Here’s what happened – in brief – I hope, although I do have a tendency to waffle on, as you may have noticed.
I put in my repeat prescription as normal, picked it up Monday, got it home and realised that my folic acid was missing. As my folic acid was the only thing I’d run out of (I just ordered all the RA drugs at once to save another visit to the chemist) I was a bit peeved. I contacted the surgery reception and had a conversation something like this:
Polly: I’ve collected by repeat scrip but it doesn’t include my folic acid.
Receptionist: Ah … let me look it up. Oh I see, that’s because you’re not due any until March.
Polly: Yes I am, I’ve run out.
Receptionist: Oh no, you can’t have. You see it was issued last month, and you take it three times, on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday.
Polly: Yes
Receptionist: So that’s three times a week
Polly: Yes
Receptionist: And they issue you twelve, so …
Polly: Yeeeeeeees …
Receptionist: <lightbulb going on> Oh! That is actually a month’s worth, isn’t it?
Polly: YES!!!!!!!!!!
Receptionst: Oh … in that case it looks like the doctor’s made a mistake.
Well, to cut a long story short(ish) that wasn’t the only mistake he’d made, so although I was able to have my folic acid rushed through and pick it up in time for me to take it on Wednesday, I then realised there were two other things (non RA-related) also missing from my prescription! I checked the repeat prescription paperwork and it quite clearly said that those things were due now … and that the next batch of folic acid was due in … April.
Noooooooooooooooooooooo……..
So I phoned again and asked for a doctor to call me back to discuss this, which he duly did! I had a very pleasant conversation with him, while being driven to my mum’s house by a colleague in order to turn off mum’s faulty burglar alarm … but that’s a whole nuther story … and, after an entire repeat of the conversation with the receptionist – ‘You take it three times a week … we issue twelve … OH!’ etc. he assured me he’d change it on the system and also put through a prescription for the other two things.
Tonight I went to pick them up, feeling happy, relaxed and full of the joys of spring. I went into the chemist and sure enough they did have my other two items ready. Hurrah. Then, foolishly perhaps, I checked the paperwork. Instead of saying ‘Folic Acid – due 26 March 2014’ in nice, neat print, it said ‘Folic Acid’ and then 26 March 2014 scribbled in in biro over the printed ’26 April 2014’! All very well except that a) I could do that myself, and indeed when I next put in a repeat request the doctor (probably not the same one) would assume I HAD done it myself and just not issue me any, just like the last two months and b) what happens when I want some more in May or June or whenever and the issue date is for two months down the line again?
So I went in and, having honestly been really nice and polite to the receptionist the first time (and not mentioning breathtaking incompetence at all), and really nice and polite to the doctor (in spite of mum’s alarm going off in our ears in the middle of the conversation), this time I blew my top, flipped my lid and generally had a big squawk! The receptionist was lovely – didn’t apologise exactly, they never do I’ve noticed, and neither do the docs, probably terrified if they say sorry I’ll sue them for something, but was very helpful. She put in a note for the doctor saying it did need to be changed, please, and suggested I call tomorrow to find out if it’s actually been done. (She obviously has as much faith in the system as I do!) When I said that I was sick to death of going in there and had had to come in three times in the last three days she said, ‘You should try working here. I love my cat, but honest to God I go home each night and want to kick it!’ Don’t tell Enormous Cat, but this evening I knew how she felt!
Sticks and stones …but mostly sticks
February 23, 2014 at 10:58 am | Posted in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) | 3 CommentsIt’s been a week of ups and downs – the ups were two days off, Monday and Friday, for textile/embroidery related things which were great fun – the downs were a ‘flarette’ and … nope, that’s it, just the flarette really! It meant that on Friday, when I visited a textile fair with some friends, I was hobbling around with a stick and slowing people down .. and climbing in and out of the ancient, slightly decrepit minibus, which looked like it had recently been ‘gone over’ by a bunch of worse-for-wear rugby players, was really ‘interesting’! Still, if it hadn’t been for the minibus I wouldn’t have got there at all, so thank you driver! In spite of the flare I managed to have a nice day – and a very sociable one – not just with the friends I travelled down with, but with everyone there. The small size of the event meant that everyone was chatty, which was really nice, especially in the canteen where I spent a rather large amount of time, since I couldn’t walk well!
The fair was in a school, meaning that in the canteen you either sat on the end of a bench or had to climb in – which I couldn’t do. At one point I limped up to the end of a table where there was a lady sitting the other side already, sat down and accidentally bashed her slightly with my stick. When I apologised she just smiled and said ‘which leg is it?’ ‘Left’ I said. ‘Oh good,’ she said, ‘it’s my left too, so if we sit diagonally we should be fine!’ It turned out she was an autoimmune arthritis sufferer too – and a lovely lady, although sadly in a worse state than me, making it hard for her to actually do all the crafts she loved. We had a good conversation though – as I did with several other pleasant ladies I shall probably never see again!
She said she’d decided to leave her stick in the car, because she didn’t want to become too dependent on it. I only use mine occasionally, when flaring, because bits of me give way and then I can’t walk at all but I can hobble if I’ve got my stick; but it raised an interesting point, I thought. Can one become too dependent on a stick? Maybe. I know that when things were getting better yesterday (hurrah) I felt safer with my stick, just in case – but I did I really need it? Maybe not. Does it matter? Well, probably not if I was happy to just carry it and not use it, but that looks weird and then all the old folk in town give you the evil eye, a look that says, ‘Ha, suppose you’re one of them “benefit cheats” I was reading about in The Mail.’ I know I shouldn’t care what they think … but it’s hard not to. ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones’ but a hard stare from a pensioner cannot hurt me!*
Perhaps the answer is one of those fold-away canes – but the problem is they’re not exactly feather-light and my handbag is quite heavy enough as it is!
Answers on a postcard please …
* I have nothing against pensioners, and chances are they have nothing against me and it’s all in my head … but we do have a large percentage of pensioners in our town, which is why they are statistically most likely to be the ones giving me ‘the look’!
The latest on the blood test fiasco
January 29, 2014 at 3:12 pm | Posted in Me, rheumatoid arthritis (RA) | 8 CommentsTags: appointment, blood test, disaster, NHS, Rheumatoid arthritis, rheumatology, rheumy nurse, walk-in
Here’s the thing. You may remember that I said back in November that the hospital were happy for us to have 3-monthly blood-tests for methotrexate? Well it turns out that I’d misunderstood. It appears that the hospital are happy for us to have monthly blood tests but only see the surgery rheumy nurse three-monthly. They are NOT happy to have methotrexate patients checked only three-monthly.
Well that would mean attending the walk-in blood-test appointments, and if you reading my most recent post on this you’ll know they’re a joke – or they would be a joke if they weren’t a tragedy. Today I attended my three-monthly test and had a wee chat to my lovely rheumy nurse about the monthly tests.
They seem to have put the blood tests on a Wednesday now, although my last notification was for a Thursday – perhaps it’s both now. If so, it’s not helping. The nurse freely admitted that the system was a disaster and I witnessed the rugby scrum as the board with the little numbers stuck to it was brought out by the receptionist.
Walking-sticks flying, old people beat others out of the way as they charged toward the board, knocking down the poor receptionist who was trying to attach it the wall. An ambulance had to be called to cart off the trampled people when the scrum was over.
OK, I exaggerated just a tad there, but not as much as you’d think!
In spite of the fact that there’s a notice up saying ‘Unless you have a really important personal reason or work, please don’t come in before 9:30 for the blood test’ I don’t think one person in the scrum was under 80. Now the thing is, from experience they all know that there’s going to be a 1.5-2 hour wait, and they have lives too – why on earth should they wait 2 hours just because they don’t have work – so I don’t blame anyone, of any age for coming in at 8:15 plus rather than 9:30 – but the whole thing is just a failure … and surprise surprise, staff are going off sick with stress – so would I be, I think, under the circumstances!
The only light at the end of the tunnel maybe, maybe, maybe, the hospital will see that people are not ‘complying’ with their monthly tests and then tell the surgery they have to reinstate tests with the rheumy nurse each month – I don’t suppose that will happen though. They’ll probably just tell the patients off instead.
It’s not the lack of rheumy nurse I object to – it’s the lack of an appointment time , and a sensible one at that, that doesn’t assume each patient can be dealt with in 2.5 seconds or whatever their crazy trial showed!
Come and join me in a Facebook chat
January 25, 2014 at 12:12 pm | Posted in arthrits, rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia, joint pai, Me, rheumatoid arthritis (RA) | 4 CommentsTags: arthritis, R.A., RA, rhematoid arthritis, Rheumatoid arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis (RA)
‘What?’ cries anyone that knows me. ‘You? Chatting on Facebook? Didn’t even know you knew HOW to chat on Facebook.’ Well … just about… with a bit of help. This is for IFAA – International Foundation for Autoimmune Arthritis. I’m one of their ‘blog leaders’ helping to spread the word about their work … although I’m not very good at remembering to post etc. so I thought I should make the effort to get over Facebook-phobia! Here are the details about the chat but NOTE IT IS 8:30pm UK time!
Here’s the link: https://www.facebook.com/IFAutoimmuneArthritis Hoping to ‘meet’ you there.
No hairspray!
January 21, 2014 at 4:15 pm | Posted in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) | 2 CommentsThis is a very quick update to my hairspray post. Good news – NO hairspray today – so I figure it must have been the sinuses! Hurrah!
Healclick.com – update review
January 21, 2014 at 11:29 am | Posted in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) | 3 CommentsI introduced Healclick last week with this post. In a nutshell, it’s a site that’s run for patients, by patients, and aims, amongst other things, to match people up to people suffering similar problems and symptoms and who are similar all round.
Well … they seem to be having a few teething problems at the moment but I hope people will bear with them while they get sorted, as it does seem a really good idea, if they can crack the technology! When I first signed up, they were matching people with percentages, but getting ’100% match’ for a man who had RA along with a plethora of other things, just because he was close in age (is that really THAT relevant I wonder?) and perhaps because he was geographically close, didn’t really work for me. I can’t be 100% similar to a man, let alone all the other issues we didn’t share – so I wasn’t really that impressed with the matching system. And one of my 80% matches was someone who had migraines – well yeah, so do I, but she didn’t have arthritis at all.
Then they changed the way you viewed matches so that the percentages disappeared – a good move I think. It went to ‘great match’ or ‘good match’ or less. Now I think they’ve changed something again, because when I went back in this morning I suddenly have not a single good match. They’re all labelled as ‘low match’ and the people I was closely matched to have disappeared off my list altogether.
Ha – checked in ten minutes later and my matches are back! I’m still ‘great match’ with the man with lots of other conditions – I’m guessing it’s geography and age that does it, and I don’t agree with that, in this online world – BUT I do think I’m a good match with some of the people listed as ‘good matches’, so I’m feeling a bit more encouraged than I was!
Of course one major thing is that you have to fill in quite a lot of stuff in quite a lot of detail to really see how close a match is – so if you do sign up, be prepared to be bothered or it won’t work for you!
Hairspray?!
January 20, 2014 at 11:27 am | Posted in arthrits, rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia, joint pai, Me, rheumatoid arthritis (RA) | 5 CommentsTags: arthritis, doctor, GP, methotrexate, NHS, R.A., RA, rhematoid arthritis, rheumatoid, Rheumatoid arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis (RA), rheumatology, work
Something odd’s been happening lately. Several times I have suddenly smelt (and even tasted) hairspray – and once or twice it’s been a taste sitting at the back of my mouth/throat for hours and hours. The first time it happened I assume my colleagues (aka the junior penguins) had been drastically overusing the stuff, although neither of them looked lacquered (!) but the following day I woke up with the same thing, so I figured I couldn’t blame them after all.
Then it went and I thought no more about it for a few days … and then it came back! At its worst it’s really very unpleasant indeed – it makes everything taste slightly odd, even put me off my coffee for a short time, which is unheard of!
And then it went again.
I can only think of two serious possibilities for what might cause this, given that I don’t own any hairspray and it’s definitely not the JPs’ fault! One is a bit gross, so GROSSNESS alert, skip the next paragraph if you don’t want to be ‘grossed out’.
OK, here goes – I’m just getting over a nasty bout of sinusitis – and part of that is (or can be) having blood and puss form in the sinuses which then has to … erm … find a way out! The way out is either via the nose or down the back of the throat … and in my case (gross bit) it was doing both! Now blood has a sort of metallic taste that could, I feel, be confused (especially in my naturally confused state!) with the metallic smell/taste of hairspray. Of course you may have never tasted hairspray – lucky you! I’ve managed to ingest a bit now and then over the years when using it!
OK, that’s the gross bit out of the way. The other, very faint I think, possibility is the methotrexate. The posh name for an unexplained metallic, foul or unpleasant taste in the mouth is Dysgeusia and it has been reported, very rarely, as a side-effect of the methotrexate. However, the little I can find about it SEEMED to suggest that it doesn’t go away, and the only thing that makes it go is stopping the cause – i.e. stop taking the MTX. Well, it’s not THAT bad! I think the MTX has done me a LOT of good, so a bit of a bad taste in the mouth I can live with. Then again … it may be nothing to do with it anyway.
Needless to say, I won’t be popular with our stressed NHS doctors if I make an appointment and say ‘I’ve got this funny taste in my mouth…’ so I haven’t bothered. What I will do is see how thing are tomorrow morning, given that I take my methotrexate tonight. I THINK it’s been worst on Tuesdays the last couple of weeks, but am I just imaging that? I’ll find out tomorrow!
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A bit about me
My name is not Pollyanna and I'm not a penguin. If you'd not worked out the last bit you should probably stop reading this and seek out a psychologist.
This is a blog about me and rheumatoid arthritis - sounds like fun, huh? Well I'm hoping it'll be a bit more fun than it sounds - hence the Pollyanna part. I'm going to try to stay positive about it and play 'Pollyanna's glad game' - finding reasons to be cheerful basically.
If you really want to know more see the 'About me' page.
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