lkavaloff

Hello,
Thanks so much for the post that made me so happy this morning to see that some people have read my post and feel what I feel. I would like to give a more indepth back ground of me and my illness.
Well 1st off when I was 3, I fell off the monkey bars and I dislocated the radial head in my elbow, and we lived in a very small town and they didnt realize until 5 days later when someone was really able to look at my ex-rays and they found that break, so my mom had to bring me back and they put on a full cast right to my shoulder (so I had been walking around for 5 days with this broken elbow), anways after a week or 2 once the swelling went down I took off my cast cause it was so uncomfortable, so they just kept my arm in a sling the rest of the time, and well I guess it didnt heal right cause always after then I had aches and pains in my elbow joint and it makes this awful grinding noise. So anyways I kept on going on with my life. I was a very active child and I was into figure skating competively and I was always excersing, dancing,weight's all sorts of things to be in tip top shage for figure skating. In grade 7 I got Mono once and I pretty much was really very ill and in bed for a whole year but I started to feel better. So I got better from that I was continueing with my skating 24/7 it was my life and dream to be in the Olypmpics. Here and there I had a couple of very bad falls and I had broken my left wrist (the same arm that I had injured my elbow when I was 3) oh about 5 times and the last time I was unable to use my wrist and hand for about 6 months it was so swollen for so long I had to get sugrey to bring the swelling down and I had to go into intensive phyiso therpy everyday to gain use of wrist and had again it came back slowly but I was able to heal from that and be able to use my left arm again and I might add that I am left handed and I had to learn to write and eat with my other hand. And its always funny because when you fall you automaticly will put out the hand you write with and use to break your fall, so I have only injured my left wrist.
While this was all going on I started to get really bad pains right in my spinal cord really in it, also really bad pains in my left injured arm, as well I started to get pains in my legs so bad sometimes that I could walk sometimes and I would be stuck in bed with bad spianl pains, whole left arms pains and legs. Of course my Mom found it strange for her 14 old daughter to be in all this pain and she knew that this was not grwoing pains what so ever. So she took me to see our family Doctor and she tested me for Lupus and R/A and it came back flase postive or something. I know that back in the early 90's testing for that was really hard. So she sent me to see a Rhematiogist.
So I went to see him and he basically said the pains your feeling are normal and that I am not exceriseing enough and that I should do more then I am, I told him I figure skate over 40 hours a week, as well run, do ballet and lift weights and I was in tip top shape. I told him what do you want me to do cut out sleeping...lol...ya right. So I left it at that for then cause that Dr. was a jerk. Then I had major family problems with my Mom and I found out that for 2 years she had been faking me and everyone else in my family that she had cancer and I found out that she didnt. So make a long story short on that, I was removed from my mothers care and was put in child welfare. But I had this dumd loyatly to my Mom and she didnt want me to be in childwelfare at all and told me if I did stay with someone from that she would disown me, so me be a scared 16 year old girl alone, I went to the streets and I was on the streets for about 1 and half and then finally and went into child welfare and got the help that I need to get my life back on track and through that whole time I was still get all these pains everywhere on my body. I also get Mono again and it took me over a year to get over that again.
So now I'm living on my own and I was 20 and I started to want to find out why I was getting these pains. At the time it was mostly in my left elbow the most. So I started with my family doctor and he did ex-ray's on the elbow and there was nothing he could see himself wrong, so he sent me for a nerve test as well on that arm and I found out that my alnuer nerve was running really slow. So he sent me to see and Othro Surgeon and he was a really old guy really old school if you know what I mean. So he told me that there was nothing that he could do for me and he gave me a Cortizone shot in my elbow and told me to just live with it. Here I was expecting that I was going to get some surgrey to fix my elbow. But no that's no the case, I'm still left with no answer's as why I'm getting pains in my elbow so bad that I cant even touch certain parts or even think about touching it it just make my nerves in there hurt. My family doctor through this whole time which took a year to get in to see that Othro Specialist was giving me prekadan for the pain. I got 100pills a month 5mg ones I was taking 2 every 4 hours. So here I was back to square one again and in more pain then ever all over my whole body.
Then one day I was talking with a friend of mine that is a masseage therispt and I was telling all the pains I feel and she told me that she has some clients that have Lupus and R/A that have that same sort of pain. It was a light when on in my head and I thought back to myself that's what I had, I rememebered that I was tested once and and that ******* rhem I saw. So I went to my family doctor, told him that I think this is what I have and he order the blood work and 2 weeks later he got the test back and sure enough my test came back positve for that. So he sent to see a rhem. But here in Canada yes we have free healthcare pretty much but the bad thing it can sometime takes up to a year to get into to see a specialist. So I did a little phone work and I got his asstiants phone number and I told her that it has taken me 2 years to find out what I had and that I'm in so much pain that I could possiably wait 6 months to get in to see him. So she pulled some strings and I was in to see him within 2 weeks.
I RAN OUT OF ROOM SO LOOK FOR THE NEXTED POST FOR THE REST OF MY STORY