I'm a bit hacked off with the doctors right now.
Diehards will probably know my story but I was diagnosed with probable early RA just over a year ago despite protesting at every visit to the rheumy and GP that I don't feel like I've got RA. And please could someone just look at my feet. Despite constant perfect inflammatory markers, I was convicted on the basis of a positive anti ccp result, and so every time I told them that the drugs were doing nothing and that my feet hurt, they would tell me that it was because I had inflammation in my feet, and that the reason why I still had inflammation in my feet was because I wasn't on a high enough dose of methotrexate, so I had to increase it. They told me that I must have been in constant "flare" for the past year and that was why my feet hurt all day every day. They told me that the fact that my inflammatory markers were always perfect meant nothing, because many people's inflammatory markers don't rise in response to inflammation (which always left me wondering why they were considered to be such reliable indicators). They constantly took this line because of my positive anti ccp, and never would accept any suggestion by me that I might be one of 2-3% of people who have positive anti ccp but no RA.
Anyway, I finally managed to persuade them to look at my foot this time. Instead of attacking the anti ccp issue, I suggested that maybe there were two things wrong with me. Yesterday, the radiographer found one Mortons neuroma in one foot, two Mortons neuroma in the other foot, no sign of RA inflammation or damage whatsoever in either foot, but the possibility of bunions developing on my two big toes which he says I need an x Ray for.
I'm pretty hacked off actually. This is the same pain I have always experienced, and so the pain I have felt for a year which they have always said was RA, was in fact mechanical neurological damage which might not have become so bad if they had looked at my feet a year ago. They relied too much on the anti ccp results. I know I'm not out of the woods yet with regard to the RA diagnosis, purely because of the anti ccp result, but I wish they had given me more thorough care from the beginning. For flips sake, I even started off in the private system so you couldn't even excuse it for lack of NHS funding st the beginning (but I did soon shoot across to the NHS with my tail between my legs when my private health cover ran out, very quickly).
If what they tell you doesn't feel right, keep fighting. They aren't the know all seers.
for now, it's one nil to me. 
seropositive RA 8 yrs ago, now seronegative?
Feet
The continuing debate about CRP and ESR, my experience...so far.
