Flare finally over – woohoo!

Since I started the steroids a couple of weeks ago, I've been ticking of little milestones: today I can bend the leg a bit, today I managed to walk round the garden ... and bigger ones, today I stopped using my stick, today I made it onto my favorite local footpath ... but today's milestone …

Shielding letter

Here in the UK there are two categories of 'vulnerability' to COVID-19, 'vulnerable' and 'shielding'. I've known I was in the vulnerable category from day 1 - in fact before day 1 of the lockdown. From a week or so before lockdown I was already practicing 'social distancing' and not going into shops etc. because …

Aspiration and injection into the knee

Well ... after ten years of saying 'I will NEVER have another aspiration and injection into the knee, not for a million pounds ...' I've just had one! Kudos to the hospital - the day unit were fantastic - so different to the staff in the other part where you go for the six-monthly checks. …

Another flare – same ol’ numpty!

So ..I'm flaring again, since Monday, and it's the worst one I've had so far, although completely focused on the left knee, so I'm expecting them to brush it off as osteo. Maybe it is partly  it's swollen, warm to the touch and bends to about 120 degrees at best (worse in the morning) and …

Do as I say, not as I do!

I'm sure I've banged on at least once or twice on this blog about how important it is for the patient to manage their own illness as much as possible, and how important it is to keep a track yourself of your blood test results etc. Weeeeeell, I've had this dratted disease for over ten …

RA Blog Week Day 2: Active or Reactive Patient?

Well, what a dismal excuse for a blogging penguin I am! I completely forget that yesterday was day one of RA blog week. I guess this makes me a reactive blogger, or at least definitely not an active one, but now it's day 2 and we're discussing active versus reactive patients. Well, I'd like to …

The frustrations of not having a relationship with your doctor

Thanks to the state of the NHS today (which, if you read this blog often you will know I harp on about endlessly) it is simply not possible to have a relationship with your GP these days (unless you're incredibly lucky or live on some tiny island that actually has its own GP or something!) …

Unexpected Hospital Invoice

I got an invoice in the post yesterday from the hospital, 'Charge for prescription fee'. I haven't had a prescription fro the hospital - what the heck are they on about? Then I thought, 'Aha - it's probably for my appointment on 8th Feb - the injection' so I phoned finance and pointed out that I …

Hospital appointment – only 7 months late

I've just had my April hospital appointment - well, it was supposed to be in April - then they moved it to June .. then they moved it to August ... then they moved it to September ... then they moved it to November... but this time it didn't get cancelled. Right, I thought, I've …

Biosimilars

Well, I meant to write this post about biosimilars weeks ago, but alas, I came back from London and fairly quickly went down with a really bad cold, which I'm still getting over now! It was bad enough, combined with the methotrexate/immunosuppression, to require antibiotics for the secondary infection and it hit chest and sinusses at the …