Non-specific rheumatoid arthritis

[NewGuy]

My wife was diagnosed with this about eight years ago after extensive testing ar Banglamung Hospital (several visits and lots of tests - and waiting).  Her symptoms were painful joints (at one time, either ankle, knee, wrist, finger- like that). I gather that the diagnosis came by ruling out other possible causes. She was told to take paracetamol 500 mg, 2 tabs every 4-6 hours as needed, and ibuprofen 400 mg three times a day, and Omeprazole 20 mg to reduce upset tummy. When symptoms stopped she was to stop the meds.

 

The pain stopped within two days.  Since then she has had bouts of painful arthritis every 3-5 months, and the meds worked, taking between 2 and 5 days. But this changed early March 2017 after seven days into a month-long visit to Cambodia when she had a lot of pain in both ankles and knees - her regular meds just didn't help.  When we returned, our BPH doctor suggested she take only three paracetamol tabs daily, and Celebrex 400 mg, once daily for 10 days. We went to Vietnam for Songkran, and she was still in pain, but it was reduced by 30-50% (my guess).

 

On return, we saw BPH's Dr. Nantharath Wong-aporn (Board of Internal,Medicine and Rhrumatology).  My wife had a lot of blood work, initial results okay and we are going back in a week for other results (ANA, anti-CCP). There is pressure to have an MRI on one knee; this might reveal details of the inflammation or problems at the joint.  The cost w/b 16,000.

 

Should she have this test at BPH or visit Dr. Virat Pinyopornpanit at Bumrungrad, as recommended by Sheryl in several of her posts?

 

Thanks to all, and cheers.

[Sheryl]

I would recommend Dr. Virat for consultation. Where you get tests done is up to you as long as you take the results with you so can show him..

 

You can get an MRI of the knee fir around 8000 bht here  http://www.mrithailand.com/index.php?lang=en

 

If the MRI does show an issue with the knee joint, Dr. Panya at Bumrungrad is top knee specialist

 

BTW there is no such things as "nonspecific rheumatoid arthritis". Rheumatoid is a specific type of arthritis.  The medications you report her being given sound like it was assumed to be a non-specific arthritis.  The blood tests done by the rheumatologist suggest that he thinks it might be rheuamtoid arthritis or at least wants to rule it out.

 

RA is a serious business with some very potent drugs used to treat it that have significant side effects, so it is a diagnosis worth making sure of.

[chubby]

fwiw, those meds do nothing but treat symptoms, and side effects of the NSAIDs,    RA has a factor that shows up in blood tests, if she has it.  I would guess since they didn't say she did and 'did a lot of blood tests' it would seem she doesn't have RA

 

There are many types of arthritis,  also non-specific means nothing either,  so  you kind of have a whole lot of nothing there to go on.

 

what is her age ?  another classic questions is whether she has morning stiffness, that gets better as the day goes or vice versa.  To test for OA  often they just do an Xray which will show how much joint space there is or isn't , MRI is overkill if not done yet ,  unless they suspect  something more complicated,   that would cause  flareups, but then I would not think that was so much arthritis ....

 

need more infos :)

Edited May 12, 2017 by chubby
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[NewGuy]

Thanks Sheryl, good advice. And thanks chubby too.  Cheers.