About 15 years ago I worked as a nurses aide in a nursing home, and I started getting very tired, and very weak. My right shoulder blade started hurting and than became very swollen (I looked like I had a hunch back) I went to my family doctor and he ran several tests and diagnosed me with a degenerating arthritis of the spine. I had to take a leave from work and get plenty of rest. After a period of a month things seem to be better but I couldn't go back to work because of all the lifting.

I decided to stay home and just be a house wife & a mother. Several years passed, and all at once I started waking up of a morning with the joints in my hands and feet hurting and swollen. When I would go to the doctor the swelling would be gone and everything looked fine, all the blood test would come back within normal range. This went on for several months. One day my hands were hurting so bad that I could not lay them flat down on the table, they were trying to draw up into a fist. I went to the doctor and this time he tested me and said that I had Rheumatoid Arthritis. I was put on Naprosyn daily. This really helped for a long time. There was no pain or swelling

I did real good for about one and a half years. I had a real bad flare up where my whole body was swelling and the pain of the joints and muscles would not go away. I could not touch my hands behind my back or bend over to pick something up. My husband and daughter were helping me get dressed and do the things I couldn't do. I was feeling very helpless and I was getting very depressed and angry because I had to depend on others, The thing is I never looked sick.

I went to the doctor and he said you are having an arthritis flare up so he put me on prednizone and this took the swelling and pain away in about two weeks. About a month later I came down with a case of shingles which caused my arthritis to flare up again. It took six months of being back on prednisone to get rid of the flare up. The shingles stayed in my system for about a year. I still have scars. Things started getting better but as you probably know there is always a pain that never leaves and you just learn to live with it as part of your daily life.

Three years ago I had a collapsed lung for no apparent reason. I was hospitalized for ten days before they could keep my lung inflated. After I was released from the hospital I had several test by my lung doctor to see why I had a collapsed lung, The findings were that my arthritis caused it. My lung doctor sent me to a arthritis specialist and he put me on plaquenil. At my next check my skin was tight on my hands and feet and I was telling him how bad they hurt. He sent me for a skin tissue biopsy on my hands - he was looking for scleroderma. The biopsy came back negative. He just continued to watch me.

This past Aug. I went for my exam with the arthritis doctor and these were my complaints: severe pain in my hands, wrists, feet, ankles, I cannot lay on my left shoulder, I get short of breath real easy, I have no strength in my hands and they go numb on me if held in one position very long. When I get cold I feel like I am cold all the way to the bone, it takes me several hours to get warm unless I get into a hot tub of water. After I told him all of this he sent me to my lung specialists for a lung cat scan, which showed that I have a lot of fibrosis in my right lung.(The left lung is the one that collapsed)

My lung specialist decided to do a lung biopsy on me. After this I was sent for pulmonary workups and we found out that my lung is only working at a 50% capacity. The arthritis doctor still says that I have scleroderma but it does not show in my blood or in my biopsies. I would appreciate any comments back to me about how people know for sure that they have scleroderma. I could cope with the illness alot better if I knew for sure what it is. I also have Raynaud's Disease in my hands and feet.
I need all the help and support I can get.

Thanks
Martha Wade

mwade@glblnet.com

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Copyright © 1997 Martha Wade