Hello all

ImNotFinishedJustYet

Hello everyone.

I'm David, 40 from the South West!

I've been having troubles with my hands, knees, hips and feet for a while but GP's wouldn't investigate too thoroughly as they wanted to deal with me with a disease I have called Graves Disease first and then they dealt with my diabetes, but now they've agreed to x-rays for my hands and feet and lo and behold.....the pains I am feeling are arthritis related!

I've had further blood tests and will receive the results next Thursday, so i'll find out if it's Osteoarthritis or Rheumatoid Arthritis then....maybe. Not sure how it's worked out, but the blood tests are for Rheumatoid Arthritis and I don't know what will happen when the results come through, they haven't gone into any detail, all I know is it hurts and i'm struggling with it. My job is in retail and I only work 22 hours per week due to the graves disease and the effects of that and I had a really hard day today - I just couldn't get my legs to work - the ankles and knees just didn't want to play at all.

Hope to catch you around - I have many questions!

David

[Deleted User]

Hi David welcome to the forum.Sorry you are in so much pain we all have arthritis in one form or another on the forums and understand how you feel .Everyone is friendly and will chat freely about themselves, just join in on one of the forums.
All the best Christine

stickywicket

Hello David and welcome to the forum I'm originally from Yorkshire but now living in Scotland. I love your part of the world too, though.

It sounds as if you have quite a lot going on there. I don't really know anything about Graves other than it's an autoimmune disease like some forms of arthritis. Neither do I have any experience of diabetes.

Arthritis, though - well, I have a degree in that I have RA which led to OA over the years. I see your GP is testing 'for RA'. It's not quite so simple as there are more forms of autoimmune arthritis than just RA and the tests that GPs can do don't tell the whole story but they usually tell enough for the GP to learn whether or not to refer you to a rheumatologist. Rheumatologists deal with the autoimmune forms of arthritis and GPs with OA.

Please ask away if you have questions, preferably on the Living With Arthritis forum as more people look in there.

ImNotFinishedJustYet

Thanks for your replies and information- nice to meet you.

I will have a look around and ask questions in the relevant sections.

Many thanks.

David