Hello all

I would be grateful if anybody can give me some advice as I am so weary of having constant pain running from my shoulders right down my arms to the wrist and hands. I think all the muscles and tendons are inflamed and have some lumpy bits on the underside of my wrist. I get a relief from soaking my arms in hot water especially before going to bed.

Just to say I have failed on leflunomide over the past nine months my GP put me back on steroids awaiting to go on infliximab. I am trying to stay at 7.5mg having taken a quite a lot over the last 18 months of having RA. I saw my consultant privately in mid July, when he said about going on the anti tnf, as that was the only way of seeing him and basically he told me he is in dire straits as he cannot cope with the level of patients he needs to treat and the hierarchy at the hospital have refused to take on another consultant, the specialist nurse helpline is closed and my GP is sympathetic but that is all. It feels like you are waiting forever and when you have some much pain it of course makes it worse, like I m sure we all know.

Many thanks

Julia

Thanks Fiona for advice and support.

I June of this year I went and had an MRI can on my hands and wrists, and the pain I went through in my shoulders was unimaginable and suffered for days afterwards. Well to date I have tried to obtain the results and have got nowhere - I was sent to another hospital for this scan and can only guess what may have happened. My shoulders have always been really bad and my first taste of RA was severe pain in my upper arm. When I eventually get back to the hospital I will bring up the Carpel Tunnel S. with them thanks.

Take care too, Julia x

Sorry your in so much pain and especially at night. Last night my hip was so bad I took a hot water bottle to bed, wrapped it in a pillow slip then kept it as close as possible to my hip.
Helped to ease the pain, maybe give it a try. Kathleen xx

Hi Julia ,i had carpel tunnel, inflammation and all the horrible pain aswell. I found my tens machine gave me some relief for a little while now and again . This was before the MTX kicked in. But there where times nothing really helped so i know what you are going through.
Kathleen Mc.

Hi Julia

One of the first problems I experienced was tendonitis in my wrist. This cleared up once hydroxy kicked in. I then went on to get hip and thigh pain in both legs which an MRI showed as bursitis/tendonis. Added to this a piece of disc broke away in my spine which gave me horrendous pain. My specialist put me on amitriptyline which has helped with all these aches and pains. It could be that you have some nerve inflammation caused by the tendonitis so perhaps you could discuss this with you doc to see if this drug could give you some relief.

Best wishes Brenda