We went to the rheumatologist today. It was a very long appointment but it was very informative. Our doctor, Dr. I, is awesome! She's a lovely woman with a wonderful bedside manner. She's also very up front and I like that a lot.
After a thorough evaluation of Siobhan's joints, she confirmed and diagnosis and let us know where we need to go from here. Siobhan has Oligoarthritis but is on the borderline of having Ployarthritis-the only thing that separates the two is the number of joints involved and the cut-off is pretty arbitrary.
Anyway, our treatment plan is going to be very involved for the first little while until we figure out what works best for Siobhan. She's going to keep taking her Naprosyn like we've been doing twice a day. To that, we're adding Prednisone but that is going to be tapered off over the course of about six weeks. And finally, Siobhan is going to start getting weekly injections of methotrexate which is an old school, tried and true arthritis medication. So tomorrow, Siobhan I get to go back to Primary Children's Hospital for a crash course of how to give her shots. This is all aggressive of course and there's a reason for that. Some 'markers' in her blood are elevated which indicates that the arthritis is technically all through her body. We're attacking her current symptoms now so that we can stop the JIA from going to other joints.
During the appointment, we got a lot of answers to the many questions that we've had. We don't need to put Siobhan on a special diet, but we may still load up our pantry and fridge with super healthy stuff, because it can't hurt, right? We don't need to limit her activity, just let her take the lead. Also, the sleeping thing, which I'm not sure I've blogged about, the doctor thinks is more anxiety than anything else. So we're trying to come up with some ways to combat that. Also, the ANA test that I talked about yesterday, totally Negative which is awesome!!!! That means that her risk of getting Uveitis go waaaaaayyyyy down! Hooray! So those beautiful eyes are going to stay that way!
After the doctor, we put a movie on in the car and one of the previews talked about a 'secret weapon'. Siobhan was asking what a weapon is so we gave a few examples and one of them was when you're sick, medicine is your secret weapon to make you better. She then said, 'So maybe my medicine for my knees is my secret weapon to make my knees feel better!' We then decided that since Siobhan is going to have a lot of different meds and supplements, we would a get box to put it all in and we would decorate it and write 'Siobhan's Secret Weapons' on it! We're going to use these weapons to make her feel better!
I very much like the "Secret Weapon" box idea:-) Keeping you guys in my prayers!
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