Anyone else had major joint pain and carpal tunnel symptoms when pregnant?

[kateb81]

Hi everyone, I'm currently about 15 weeks pregnant with my 8th pregnancy (only have 1 child). With my daughters pregnancy I suffered with carpal and tarsal (excuse spelling) tunnel or so I was told by my Dr's but I'm really suffering again. The last week or so the pain in my joints and tingling n the tips of my fingers has progressively gotten worse to the point that I feel like an old and us less woman today. I had something similar wit one of my pregnancies that ended in miscarriage and when I mentioned it to my Dr's they just said it was my body getting ready for birth and said it was nothing to do with aps. Has anyone else had anything similar or can offer some advice please? I'm not due to see my Dr's until 24th April and hoping the pain will have eased by then. Thanks in advance.

Kate xxxx

[MaryF Administrator]

Hi there, it does sound as if you really need to push your doctors on this, sorry you are having such a worrying time. APS can do all sorts of funny things and this includes when pregnant. I hope bearing in mind the overlapping of autoimmune conditions that they also check out your thyroid during and afterwards and carpel tunnel is a major player in this. Best wishes. Mary F x

Are you being looked after by a rheumatologist or haematologist and is your obstetrics team up to date with APS info?

[kateb81]

Hmm my Dr situation is a bit dodgy atm. I swapped hospital for this pregnancy purely for logistic reasons for my family and to make the appointments with as little disruption to work for me and hubby as possible. I am atm regretting my decision as I have not yet seen my obs consultant and the registrars that I have seen haven't listened to me at all with the info given to me about future pregnancies from my previous hospital . This isn't helped by the other hospital not forwarding my records yet.... my apt on the 24th is due to be for the joint obs and haem consultants however if I don't see a consultant again I might just pop especially as I've gotta attend this apt on my own... hope this makes sense lol k xxx

[MaryF Administrator in reply to kateb81]

ok, get your hands on every letter that has been written via last hospital and GP... (you should have been sent copies), if not ring up the secretary of your old consultant and get them posted pronto, or even better emailed. Then contact the secretary of your new obstetrician and get her or his email, you can normally get your hands on secretaries email addresses. Forward all the emails about your condition/conditions to them marked extremely urgent, I would also send copies of this to your GP's secretary. They will then have to act. I would do this tomorrow! A little pushing and it will all come together and i have done this many times for myself and others I know! If all information is presented like this in one email of attachments it can't be ignored . Do this after you have made contact with the secretaries, they are your key to this! Mary F x

[SassyOne]

I hope they have you on Heparin ( or other pregnancy safe thinner). Before I had a diagnosis I had a pregnancy that caused a flare up of symptoms. I had severe fatigue, dizzyness, funny turns, headaches, really bad chest pains, Renaud's syndrome got really bad (numb, white/purple/blue fingers) Bad SPD (pelvic bone pain & cracking) Really sore feet, swollen legs..... Pregnancy is hard enough APS does complicate things. My daughter is One & I am thinking about trying for another baby but I don't look forward to pregnancy. The blood thinners really helped (they put me on thinners during pregnancy due to a previous PE just as a precaution, thank god)

Push for a doctor that knows about APS. I don't have much advice, but thinners helped some of the symptoms. Wishing you a better pregnancy.

[kateb81]

Oh yes I am clexane injections twice daily and aspirin at lunch time (when I remember). Have always been medicated as I'm a lifelong warfarin taker due to having a dvt when I was diagnosed but have had to fiht for the correct level of anti-coags to be on after my second loss. I'm hoping my apt on Tuesday will be more fruitful and if not I'll be kicking some serious butt :-). Xxx