Hi,
I had always been relatively healthy, until August of 2013, when I had a bout with pericarditis. I was in the hospital for a week, and a last minute procedure to drain the fluid around my heart literally saved my life. While in the hospital I had a rheumatology consult, since pericarditis tends to be associated with certain autoimmune disorders (particularly lupus). After I got home from the hospital I started getting pains in my joints, mostly hands and feet, but these went away, and I was fine for about a year. In June of this year, I was diagnosed with endometrial cancer. In July I had a complete hysterectomy/oophorectomy. Fortunately the cancer was caught very early and I didn't require any further treatment. The surgery was done robotically, so I was on my feet the day after the surgery, but still had a lot of internal healing to do. In August, I had a terrible disagreement with my psychiatrist (who was treating me for ADHD, anxiety and depression) that stressed me out very, very badly. I'm convinced that the stress from this disagreement triggered the GPA, especially considering that I was already recovering from a major trauma to my body, not to mention the surgical menopause I was going through. I was diagnosed in September of this year with GPA. I was so overwhelmed that I stayed away from all the information about the disease online. At first, my rheumatologist put me on 60 mg/day of prednisone, which made me very anxious. I had several panic attacks from it. I had to start with a new psychiatrist, who is pretty good. After 4 Rituxan infusions in October, I was able to decrease the prednisone dose and have been tapering down slowly since then. I've been on 10 mg prednisone for 3 weeks, and was scheduled to go down to 7.5 mg yesterday, but I stayed on 10 because I couldn't reach my doctor before the weekend. I didn't have any GPA symptoms at all when I was on 12.5 mg, but this past week, I started to have joint pain in my right hand (carpal tunnel also) and pins and needles in my left foot and ankle. This is what prompted me to start looking for information online. I am totally freaking out now. I have a small family and only a few friends I would ever share this with, and there is literally no one for me to talk to about this. So here I am.
I'm sorry this is so long-winded but I've been holding all of this in since yesterday. I don't even know which of my moods are really mine, and which are a result of the menopause, prednisone, GPA, etc.
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