reactive arthritis

gradually improved with the help of medications - see previous posts. I do have joint pain and am due to have some replacements but I can do most things although I will suffer the next day and do not have the stamina I had before. I hardly take any drugs any more just prescription co codamol and only twice a day. Compared to the early days with swollen joints and agony today things are good. Like someone else said I do walk badly (like a penguin) and use a stick for distance or on a bad day but things are good. Take heart, it takes time but you will get there, work out what drugs suit you and move as much as you can and stay positive. Things will

improve.

I continue with left foot swelling and stiffness in my right knee and painful right 5th metatarsal bone. This is since the mexatrexate was added. 

I work as a physical therapist. .. 

I don't like not having control over my health. I have to take the steroids, vitamin d, calcium supplementals, modifying how I walk, how I pick up or carry my nearly 4 year old daughter. 

I look at the scars on my legs from where fluid pockets developed in between my calf muscles... that is how I got diagnosed.  

Thanks.

I have been taking ibuprofen every six hours and omega 3 and some other supplements which I needed. I lost weight drematically, and was told that I looked awful. After 3 months, I can walk up and down stairs more or less normally, go on a 5 mile walk. It is improving daily and I have given up taking the painkillers. I am 67, which is quite old for this complaint,(I am told).

It will get better, so don't lose hope. You will suddenly find yourself doing something which was previously difficult to do, without thinking about it, and realize that you are getting better and the pain is subsiding. My wife was driven mad with the idea of living with an invalid, which didn't help much, but I am recovering and life is getting back to normal. I shall be skiing in January as usual, I am sure. I hope that this makes you feel better.

I am down to organic meats, a few veggies and fruits, and sometimes white rice after going on a massive elimination diet and though these things help or may help things into remission for a time, they do not cure the problem.

I am newly diagnosed. Started a lower hi infection , diarrhea, fever 103 2 weeks ago. Infection gone, but now bilat ankle pain , left hand wrist pain, and last night right side jaw pain started.

I have no idea what to expect, and am very scared. Can't chew. 11 lb 1st loss so far. Any ideas? Anyone?

I was diagnosed with reactive arthritis in 1980. I had been infected with a serious form of the Asian flu by a woman who had just arrived from Laos. I am also HLAb27 positive. I was 4 yrs out of Harvard, thinking that the word was my oyster when I became ill. No matter what anyone tells you, there is no cure for this horrid syndrome.

the best advice that I can give you is that I have been able to keep the disease somewhat in check by swimming a mile a day. Although I have been prescribed every NSAID on the market, within a week of beginning to use each and everyone of them

I have bleeding ulcers. The only drug which has been able to allow me to function-to say nothing about also being able to walk, etc. is Oxycontin. Every time some idiot overdoses on the stuff I become alarmed because if it is taken off the market I will not even be able to get out of bed. I cannot understand how the pharm. companys can figure out how to grow hair and also be able to have 4 hour erectiomns. I assume that because chronic pain is more of a woman's issue, that the male-driven pharm.industry is reluctant to help women who, but for their pain, could still be

contributing members of society.

I have had this before and habit again.

Exact symptoms as you . Starts with soul on right foot next the knees , next lower right side of spine, next my neck can't bend to 10 o'clock on left. And 2 o 'clock on right.

Blood test showed good , urine good.

My sister rang me , she had put up with stomach issues for 20 years, then a doct said he would do a stool test for a bug. Sure enough found the culprit , use of strong antibiotics , then another test .

All good now and her skin is clear of rashes etc.

BLOOD TEST LIE.

This from my sister who is feeling amazing after.

"Hi Shayne, The bug is called Clostridium difficile, ask for a fecal specimen to be done, i think it takes about 4-5 days to get results back.The specimen might also detect other bugs.The CD bug can colonize the small intestine and can go undetected for many years and then flare up. I reckon I had mine since 1993, though I don't think the doctors would believe me if I suggested this. Anyway hope you are feeling better soon. x J

Info

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported nearly half a million cases of healthcare-associated infection with C. difficile in 2011. Those affected tend to be older patients who frequently or recently received antibiotics and healthcare in the hospital setting. Interdiction of this epidemic has involved changing prescribing practices and hygienic and disinfectant guidelines in hospitals. The importance of this infection to hospitals has increased drastically with its incidence. Reactive arthritis is more often an outpatient concern and a cause of morbidity rather than mortality, but recognition of its associated etiologies, including occult ones such as Clostridium, can help a clinician more holistically appreciate a clinical presentation.

Reactive arthritis is commonly referred to by its eponym Reiter's syndrome for Dr. Hans Reiter, who described a triad of non-gonococcal urethritis, arthritis, and uveitis in a German officer during World War One. It is an inflammatory arthritis which is reactive to some other infection. Classically, this infection is genitourinary Chlamydia, but in the intervening century a wider range of infections producing this syndrome have been accepted. Reactive arthritis most often involves joints asymmetrically. While infection plays a role in its etiology, it is distinguished from septic arthritis by lack of organisms in the involved joint and characteristic inflammatory rather than infectious findings on synovial fluid analysis.

Many mild cases of reactive arthritis are certainly unrecognized and may not present to medical attention (1). In this case, the duration of time between diarrhea, or at least when it was first recognized and treated, and arthritis symptoms was 23 days. The interval between diarrhea and onset of arthritis is variable (2). Had the patient not been under medical surveillance as inpatient for recurrent abdominal pain, the stiff knee may have been left to resolve on its own. If the preceding infection was unknown, the association between it and the joint involvement may not have been drawn. If the effusion developed in the outpatient setting, it may initially be attributed to trauma. Confidence in the diagnosis of this case is enhanced by knowledge of the recent medical history and active surveillance in the inpatient setting when reactive arthritis developed.

Hello,

I am new to this forum,I think it was one of many I came upon trying to diagnose myself last year.

I am 51 years old and female so I do not meet the typical "common" patients that get reactive arthritis I've researched.

I had C-Diff and, what I felt like I was deathly sick, before being diagnosed with it from a colonoscopy after being sick for a month.A stool specimen incomplete in error for C Diff after 10 day wait by the lab and another negative.A trip to the hospital for dehydration,not eating solids for a month and I mean nothing staying in.By the time I had the colonoscopy pretty sick.Numerous lesions all over the colon.The next day woke up with what I thought pink eye and my left knee painful and swollen.I have RA so didn't think too much about it.A few days later right eye pink and knee was unbearable swollen larger than normally and right ankle pain with some swelling.By the following week both the size of an elephant and could not bare to move off the bed.I had a fever as well ,went to primary Dr.wanted to do flu test for joint pain and fever .🙄I refused it and more less told her to aspirate it for culture.

In meantime the pain was unbearable,felt like my circulation was being cut off.Went to orthopedic surgeon that thought it was sepsis since the nucleated cells were so elevated he sent me to a infectious disease Dr.that was a no go with diagnosis.Follow up to gastroenterologist and he didn't have a clue except told me I had elephantitus and laughed,referred me to a RA Dr.who couldn't see me for over a month,his assistant didn't have an answer when I called back to see if he could make a call to get in earlier .I continued to research on my own and called a list of Dr.s that could not see a new pt.for over a month.When I finally found the right RA Dr.she knew immediately what it was.She aspirated it and it was bleeding into the joint.I then had a list of multiple symptoms from inflammation to right ankle,left knee,Achilles heel,membrane of the eyes,lower back.She put me on oral steroids and injections in a course of 7 months along with Sulfasalazine.Broke out in a rash with sulfa,and cannot take anymore steroids to now I have osteopenia(very thin bones)due to steroids.

I am now on Methatrexate,I thought this was doing the trick but now the inflammation has shifted to the left ankle and the left heel pain is now a problem.I apologize for such a long post but this has been on going for a year and a month now .I would appreciate any advice or feed back.

Thank you,

Angela

Hey there

Reactive arthritis is sure not a good thing to have but it's something easily controllable with a good diet, gym and medication. Try to be as happy as possible and live your life as you should, people with RA are much much worse, our disease reaches the maximum at some point and stops developing to the dangerous level. Find the NsAIDs that works for you the best and don't worry about these Flares Ups that we get.. I mostly get them when I get upset but after a day or 2 they go away and then come back after some days in an unending cycle, each body and each immune system acts differently and can be control differently. It seems our bodies are special and do not like bacteria at all, that makes them react to them with harmful effects. Mind is overall -> Our mood is our life - Putting your mind in anxiety and stress and be ready for the next flare up which eventually will stop when your mood changes, that's me, a reactive arthritis sufferer for the last year, I stop inflammation when I want by changing my mood and stop thinking about it because when you think about this and how much it changed your life blah blah blah all that inside 1 mind doctors will start connecting Autoimmune arthritis of any kind with high iQ.. So feel clever, proud and special for having an autoimmune disease and thank your body for doing everything it can to protect you even in a wrong way.. It's like cutting your self with a knife and you wife brings you a bottle of whisky instead of paper thank her before she throws it in your head.. That's what I call pain not some silly fluid in the joints. Don't have hope.. You don't need it, let the children with cancer have for you be thankful and have a great life with lots of love and don't worry about flare ups, no need for doctors to tell you what to do.. you won't die anytime soon if that what worries you.. No matter what there are always warnings about these little percentage of organ inflammation, you will feel other type of pain if you do. remember your immune system is your friend not your enemy, it would never cause you a fatal problem only put you into trouble for a few months years decades, don't worry about when it will stop, It's a course set by your immune system and the road might be small big huge? We can never know this but we are in 2017 now and not in 1917, imagine how nice it would be without our nice cyclosporin and methotrexate etc. And with wars causing you fear=flares up and had to work like a slave for a bit of bread.. We live in the age of drugs and the age that will soon bring DNA engineering in action, there absolutely nothing to worry about whatever immune system response you have.. So to sum up

-ReA is: Easily controlled

non-fatal

Requires you to be happy

Makes you lose weight

i think my life got better, I learned how to express my self though this.. I cut smoke I exercise I eat better I feel happier in the end, I might not be able to run and jump at some days and these days means we get some rest and relax.. It's like putting unorganised people in a program and making your life from boring and usual to something greater.. Be positive, stay positive.. Love life and keep in mind all the lessons you learned from this disease as it's a great teacher about the importance of having a healthy life!!!! Have a good day reader and be always happy