Rheumatologist

So the long-awaited Rheumatologist appointment came and went. August 3, I went to go see Dr. Meier at the Idaho Arthritis Group. I filled out pages of paperwork beforehand and ended up bringing Marc along for moral support. I'm glad I did, because I had a hard time understanding her accent and he was able to decipher better than me.

So the good news, I don't have arthritis. I do have limited range of motion in my knees and hips and she wants me to do physical therapy to help with it. When we went over all the symptoms, she thinks I was having a reaction to some type of virus and she expects things to correct themselves within 3-6 months. Although we did 10 vials of blood work for testing, she thinks that something is triggering a false positive for the Auto Immune.

Later that afternoon, I went back for an ultrasound of my knees. I am yet to hear the results, but the tech was positive there was nothing arthritis related, she thought it was more structural problems. A week later I went back for a cortisone injection into my hip. A cortisone shot helps with inflammation and goes directly into the effected area and the blood stream. They did an ultrasound of my hips during the injection and saw that I have a lot of tearing in my tendons. The shot was very painful and took awhile to recover from. The purpose of the shot was to help make it possible for me to run in the upcoming relay race

**Update (I started this post over a month ago and never finished it). I have since followed up with the doctor about all the labs, scans, etc. All of my blood work came back completely normal. They even re-did the auto-immune test with a much more sensitive test and it is negative now. The doctor pretty much confirmed her suspicion that I had experienced some time of flukey virus which was showing a false positive, ransacked my body and weakened it. I was relieved to hear that nothing is wrong. I just wish I hadn't have needed to spend over $1500 out of my pocket to find out. I feel frustrated with myself and the Idaho Arthritis group for not getting an estimated treatment plan cost wise. If I had any indication of how much it was going to cost to see a specialist, I might not have gone......but then again, I would still be without answers and anxious about the diseases that could have been.