Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Joints and other stuff...
I had my rheumatology appointment yesterday, which was quite thorough - took 2 hours in total! I have CF related arthritis since my late teens, which causes my joints to become painful intermittently. It used to be mostly my knees and elbows and the pain was helped with non steroidal drugs. However post transplant I am not allowed to use these painkillers any more so it has been a bit more difficult to control. Usually what happens is that every month or two I will get really sore knees (usually one more than other), elbows and sometimes ankles and wrists. It usually lasts about 5 days then goes away. It doesn't really hold me back but can be rather annoying - it makes it painful to drive the car and to walk Seb, as exercise seems to make it worse. My main problem recently has been my hips - which flared up big style after the team jac walk! Then over the last 6 months I have had a really painful shoulder and can't lie on that side. The consultant was lovely and did a very comprehensive examination. She said there is some fluid in my left knee (although that knee is not sore at the moment....until she pressed it anyway!), my hip has really quite restricted movement, but I knew that anyway. She felt this was all related to my CF. My shoulder however seems to be a different problem (just coincidence really) and is known as an impingement syndrome, so this should be helped by a steroid injection into the area. They did x-rays of various joints, took lots of bloods and I will go back for these results in April. I will be getting the steroid injection next month - actually looking forward to it because I haven't been able to sleep on that shoulder for about 6 months and it is really getting on my nerves now! So overall I think it was a useful assessment and although there is probably not much to be added to my treatment, I at least feel reassured that is most likely just CF related.
Work has been busy as usual. I was a really interesting conference last week about ADHD (attention deficit disorder). This is becoming more relevant to general adult psychiatry due to children with ADHD needing transition to adult services. Although ADHD can improve with age, some people do continue to have symptoms into adulthood. We are also getting an increasing number of referrals of adults who have no previous diagnosis but retrospectively think this is their diagnosis, having been missed in childhood. This is why I am trying to build up my knowledge around ADHD and how to assess and diagnose because I want to be able to deal with these referrals appropriately.
Last week myself and Victoria had a nice catch up with Mandy. one of the LLTGL trustees. She was attending a large organ donation conference in Glasgow and had some interesting feed back from this. Mostly though we just munched on our burgers :-) There is a LLTGL advocate weekend planned for April, but I have Derren Brown tickets for the saturday night! I am trying to see if I can swap anyone who has tickets for the thursday so that I can still do both.
I have been emailing around trying to get some raffle and auction prizes for the ball. It is quite a frustrating task as most of the large companies have their own charity to support and as a rule do not offer prizes for other events. Some of the smaller shops are being helpful and we will just keep working on it! Unfortunately we had no success getting any wine donations from any of the big wine retailers but again, will just have a re think. Just get in touch if you have any questions about the ball or any suggestions for people to contact, get in touch on teamglasgow3@gmail.com. Remember tickets can be purchased online (I will harp on about this :)) HERE
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Hi, Glad you got on OK at the clinic and hope they can help with joint pain. You always look so amazingly well that we don't always realize that you have any aches and pains! Obviously suffer in silence, unlike other members of the family who shall be nameless!!! Must hear about your ADHD stuff as it is something we deal with a lot and not sure about. Very interesting. Will let you know how many tickets we need for the ball as soon as possible lol Anne xxx
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