Hi from Australia

Hi everyone

A brief bio. Female, 45, Hashimoto's since young. Started with flare ups after activity, sore joints and muscles, feeling sick, bloods abnormal and high CRP and ESR, symptoms pointed to lupus. Doctor nightmare for some years, the usual, it's just your thyroid and you have fibro, maybe you have narcolepsy, others haven things worse than you blah blah blah.

Found a good GP, offered prednisone to get me through for a bit and it was a Godsend, he was sure it was a connective tissue disorder, and I ended up on disability, officially mixed connective tissue disorder. Moved house, found a new rheumie at the city hospital now slightly closer, MCTD with lupus features.

Had a new round of bloods to see if any antibodies will show up (had been off pred for about 6 weeks) and see him again on the 7th. No antibodies had shown up on a few previous tests with another doctor so that was a problem with diagnosis as well. Expecting CRP and ESR to be high though.

Looking forward to chatting with others and sharing information.

Jo

Hello
I'm turning 45 in august and got my diagnosis a year ago. Sure did explain a lot of things. They always treated me for depression so I thought I must be crazy. I went to my primary doc and had made a very long list of all the different symptoms that were plaguing me. That began my journey of a thousand docs
Glad your here
Kim

Hi Jo welcome to the forum

Thanks guys

hi jo,
where in australia are you from? i lived and worked there in 2006/7 i loved it such a lovely country and the people are great. hope you can get some good meds to get you sorted soon
laney

Hello Jo

I'm currently in Adelaide but heading back to QLD in a few months. I'm getting a caravan ready to live in for a little while so I have stable accommodation for me and my dogs. One thing many don't know is that we do have Lyme in Australia and once I get up there I'll be sorting out a Lyme literate doctor for testing. We have to send our blood to the US to be tested because the tests used here don't pick it up. Lyme here can be transmitted by vectors other than ticks as well, but I've had tick bites and one with a rash. Lyme can present as a lot of different AI diseases so people die from it because they aren't treated correctly.

gorillagirl wrote:Hi everyone  

A brief bio. Female, 45, Hashimoto's since young. Started with flare ups after activity, sore joints and muscles, feeling sick, bloods abnormal and high CRP and ESR, symptoms pointed to lupus. Doctor nightmare for some years, the usual, it's just your thyroid and you have fibro, maybe you have narcolepsy, others haven things worse than you blah blah blah.

Found a good GP, offered prednisone to get me through for a bit and it was a Godsend, he was sure it was a connective tissue disorder, and I ended up on disability, officially mixed connective tissue disorder. Moved house, found a new rheumie at the city hospital now slightly closer, MCTD with lupus features.

Had a new round of bloods to see if any antibodies will show up (had been off pred for about 6 weeks) and see him again on the 7th. No antibodies had shown up on a few previous tests with another doctor so that was a problem with diagnosis as well. Expecting CRP and ESR to be high though.

Looking forward to chatting with others and sharing information.

Jo

I am also from Australia and I detest those doctors who claim that it is just fibro.

I am also from Australia, and currently living on the NSW Central Coast.

My journey started in 1987 and it took until 2008 before I found a rheumy who diagnosed my problem as MCTD where I could either head towards Lupus or RA.

My whole saga is simply too long, but I did spend the best part of 12 months fuming about the doctor I saw in Gosford. What I called him to my doctor should not be repeated in a forum.... he sent me to another doctor and now I am once again diagnosed with RA.