Horrendous RA Flare Up

Lozzabrogan

Hello All, my name is Lorraine and I am new to this forum. I wanted to know if anyone is going through the same problem as myself at the moment. I have had Juvenile Stills Disease since I was 11yrs old. I am now 50 so it’s Rheumatoid Arthritis. I have been managing on 25mg injections of Methotrexate once a week and 200mg Hydroxychloroquine twice a day for the last 6 years. I have had a couple of flare ups in the past but steroid tablets have always sorted this out within 24hours! I have now been house bound for nearly 2 weeks and in horrendous pain in both my feet and both my knees. I’ve been to the hospital everyday and they have taken 30ml of fluid from each knee and injected a steroid injection and they have also now injected both my ankles/feet. I’m also on 100mg tramadol very 4 hours plus liquid morphine 5ml every 4 hours and tablets form steroid 20mg but I’m just not getting back to how I should be. The consultant has now realised that I need to go on the next lot of medication which is very expensive so he needs to write a case to get the funding. They are discussing for me to go in and have an infusion of inflaximab which they think will help. My inflammatory markers are 180 when they should be under 5 so my life has completely changed in the last few weeks and I’ve never ever been in so much pain in the 39 years I’ve had this disease. I am at my wits end and don’t know what to do. When they did the injections they said to rest which I have done but been moving legs in bed and little walk around the house . Has this happened to anyone else on here please as I could really do with any advice on what to do to help myself and also what did the hospital do to help you and how long it took you to get better. Apologies for the extra long post. Thank you so much. Lorraine.

yaz239

Hello @Lozzabrogan ,

Welcome to the online forum. This forum is a friendly and supportive place for people living with arthritis to share their stories and tips. If you take a look around the forum I'm sure you'll be able to find other people going through the same experiences and engage in conversations with them.

Here's some extra information on infliximab- Infliximab | Side-effects, uses, time to work (versusarthritis.org)

Living with arthritis can be challenging so here's some useful information on managing knee pain too- Top tips to help knee pain (versusarthritis.org)

Thanks, Yasmin (Mod)

Lozzabrogan

Hi Yasmin, thank you for your message and helpful links to information. Is there a search bar here on the forum or do you just go through the headers page by page? Sorry , I’m not great with technology! Many thanks, Lorraine.

yaz239

Hello @Lozzabrogan , you're welcome! There is a search bar in the top left corner of the forum that you can use. I hope that helps.

Yasmin (Mod)