Rheumatic nodules

stickywicket
stickywicket Member Posts: 27,697
edited 22. Jun 2015, 10:34 in Living with Arthritis archive
Apparently tend to arise when the RA is active. This makes absolute sense but had never occurred to me :oops:

From time to time I've wondered why, a couple of years ago when I'd decided to try to reduce my meth and failed, my rheumatologist asked if I'd any new nodules. I can't remember being asked this in years. Oddly (I thought) I said I had, an interesting new knobble on an already very knobbly knuckle which was beginning to look like one of the lower foothills of the Pennines. He checked it and said he agreed with me that I'd best go back up to 15mgs.

I honestly never saw it being connected with disease activity. As far as I was concerned these things came and went and obeyed their own mysterious laws. But, from time to time since then, I have, in idle moments, wiggled my mini-Pennine and mused on its origins and Doc D's odd request. I did so again this morning during a particularly boring sermon and decided to check it out once and for all when I got home.

I did and I now offer this thread on the offchance that there is anyone else out there whose ignorance is equal to mine :wink:
If at first you don't succeed, then skydiving definitely isn't for you.
Steven Wright

Comments

  • theresak
    theresak Member Posts: 1,998
    edited 30. Nov -1, 00:00
    It just goes to show we learn new things all the time!!
  • barbara12
    barbara12 Member Posts: 21,280
    edited 30. Nov -1, 00:00
    Its surprising how we hear these questions but don't always think to question them..I wounder what the difference is between the nodules I have.. only small ones, and the RA one..I am told mine are boney growths due to the body trying to help.. :roll: I remember a lady that lived across the rd from us when I was a child and her hands fascinated me..that was before the new meds..sorry they came late for you SW..but suppose they are still helping.. :roll:
    Love
    Barbara
  • stickywicket
    stickywicket Member Posts: 27,697
    edited 30. Nov -1, 00:00
    The nodules aren't boney growths, Barbara. They're actually tissue. Quite hard tissue but they can be wiggled about. They never seem to be attached to anything.
    If at first you don't succeed, then skydiving definitely isn't for you.
    Steven Wright
  • LignumVitae
    LignumVitae Member Posts: 1,972
    edited 30. Nov -1, 00:00
    This makes sense because I had escaped their nobbly grasps until last summer when awaiting the anti-tnf go ahead. I grew a few. I suppose it is a bodily response to the inflammation and trying to control damage. The usually viscious circle of immune system attacking body and body responding. :x
    Hey little fighter, things will get brighter
  • dreamdaisy
    dreamdaisy Member Posts: 31,520
    edited 30. Nov -1, 00:00
    I think that when you have lived with something for a long, long time you stop questioning the whys and wherefores because they are no longer relevant, it's just more of the same to deal with and overcome. Those who ask barrages of questions are generally those who are new to the whole malarkey so of course they are wondering. I recall having a lump under-but-between my left big toe and the second. That went away and now the only lumps are bone growths caused by the OA. DD
    Have you got the despatches? No, I always walk like this. Eddie Braben