after moving from the UK to Germany I have had my first and second appontment with a rheumatologist here now. In the first we just discussed my symptoms and I got blood taken for tests as well as x-rays of my hands and feet done.
Now I have been for my second appointment to discuss results and the doctor doesn't think it is RA as all my blood results are more or less normal (I think 3 out of 30ish were very slightly outside the normal result) and he found lots of calcium deposits in the joints in the x-rays as well as joint abnormalities. So he thinks I have Osteoarthritis and Calcium pyrophosphate dihydrate (CPPD) crystal deposition disease, also known as pseudogout and pyrophosphate arthropathy. As my GP also had my shoulder x-rayed and found several small and one large (12x8mm) deposit in my shoulder joint this sounds plausible, especially when I read up about it and the symptoms are quite similar. I am 43 and he thinks I am quite young to have such prominent OA and deposits but didn't offer much in way of treatment, just to take 600mg of Ibuprofen up to 4 times a day but to take as much as necessary, as little as possible.
I am seeing an orthopedic specialist about this next week but the rheumatologist only wants to see me again in 6 months for repeat tests, unless I have any problems that I cannot help with the Ibuprofen.
Is there anyone here who knows more about this CPPD and what I can expect, please? I feel like the doctor expected me to be happy about the apparently less problematic diagnosis, but I am a little confused as I have read up about RA so much and now stand again without knowledge and many unanswered questions in my head...
Any help and information you might have would be very much appreciated!
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Eisbaerin2
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Thank you very much for this. I will look through all of this, but still hope to hear from people with first hands experience. Have a good day and thanks again!
Hi there , i had a shoulder injury in my 20,s and damaged several muscle and tendon attachments , i had a long course of Physio and several steroid injections and it settled . I had flare ups over the years and more injections but eventually about 14 years ago the pain was becoming more and more severe and I wasn’t sleeping. I was referred to rheumatology and he found i had a very large calcium deposit, the doctor tried to remove the liquid deposit by sucking it out but there were too many large crystals. I was then referred to orthopaedics and i had decompression surgery. I had 6-7 months of Physio and after a year i had a painfree shoulder . It was a long haul after the surgery but I did have a great result and years later my shoulder is still good ( the only bit of me LOL ) . I don’t know if this relates to your problem, did you ever have an injury ?
I cannot remember if I had a specific shoulder injury, but I was doing athletics when I was younger and it's entirely possible I did injure myself at some point. I do know that when I was 14 or 15 though I had to have a steroid injection in my shoulder because it seized up and was so painful that my mum took me to the emergency doctor who gave me the injection and also said something about gout. So maybe it was already calcium deposits rather than uric acid deposits then? As I don't think they ever tested it properly it could be... I hope the orthopedic specialist next week will look into this more and can help. Have had problems with my shoulder for months now and cannot sleep on that side anymore because of the pain.
Hubbie was diagnosed with cppd 40 years after motorbike accident. He is on the same treatment for normal gout and that works fine. He has to be careful with not overeating tomatoes as that seems to be his kryptonite.
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