ZERO NEGATIVE ARTHRITIS
Hi all
Before anyone takes offence and berates me for asking this question, let me
say that I phrased it thus, so that I could get your attention. Sorry if you
find your self offended, but I have suffered from what I know to be
arthritis for approximately ten years now, but the medical establishment
cannot in any way detect any kinds of arthritis in my body, and I need to
find a way to prove that I have arthritis.
Even though I have told them that many members of my family suffer from
arthritis and that it also could not be detected in many of them, until of
course xrays confirmed that the bones in their bodies had indeed been
affected by some sort of arthritis. A case in point is my mother who has
suffered with arthritis for roughly thirty years and had to undergo a knee
replacement a few years back. She too was tested and was tested negative,
told she didn't have it until quite by chance one doctor decided to x-ray
her knee and discovered that there were bits of bone growing all over the
place.
I myself was told by one doctor that there are quite a few forms of
arthritis which cannot be detected and so are grouped under the heading of
ZERO NEGATIVE ARTHRITIS. To be honest, I am completely ignorant of many of
the forms of arthrits and have just decided to investigate the subject
myself a few days ago, so if I seem a bit ignorant please bear with me and
feel free to put me right as and when you deem fit.
Not knowing that there were groups dedicated to arthritis, and knowing less
about the disease itself, I am now beginning a journey which I hope will
enlighten me and which I also hope will help me in my quest to prove to the
medical establishment that;
a) I am not lying about my condition (having been told by far too many
consultants and GP's that it's all in my head and yes I am seeing a
psychiatrist to discuss this possibility)
b) that there might be forms of arthritis which they are not aware of,
c) the cause of my particular arthritis is due to something which I have
observed, but which they (to date) have been unwilling to accept.
I understand that the medical establishment needs a hefty body of evidence
before they can accept that something exists and I hope that some of you in
this newsgroup will help me (and yourselves) by collecting and verifying
both the possible causes and symptoms of our particular ailment. If only to
get the medical establishment to at least do some research in this area.
I have also noted that there are certain days when my arthritis is oh so
much worse than on other days and that my observations have led me to
believe that my condition worsens due to changes in atmospheric pressure. I
am sure that many other people have also noticed this, but it seems that the
medical profession is unwilling to accept this mainly because the changes
(they say) are so minute that it could not possibly afffect us. Many of the
doctors and consultants I have spoken to believe this and I have found an
interesting essay on the subject which you can persuse at your leisure by
clicking on the following link
http://content.health.msn.com/conten...m?pagenumber=1.
I will at some point be creating a web site to collect data in order to
verify if this (atmospheric pressure changes) might be the cause and if so,
how widespread the problem is.
For the time being, I would be grateful for your opinions, support, links to
web sites which might offer enlightnement on this subject and any other help
and advice you might be able to offer in the hope that we might help find a
possible cure to this most nastiest of aliments. Most particularly I am
searching for information about research into "Arthritis and air pressure"
conducted by "Joseph L. Hollander" and anyone else who might have conducted
research in this or related fields of enquiry.
Once again, I ask that you excuse my ignorance and thank you in advance both
for taking the time to read this email and for any help or advice you might
be able to offer.
yusuf o
Hi all
Thank you all for your replies.
I truly didn't know there were so many different types of arthritis, I'm
amazed. ThanksAndŽew for that info.
I started a database a few years ago, writing down my symptoms and
fortunately I did note a marked correlation between my symptoms and the
change in air pressure. Unfortunately, my hard drive crashed and all my
notes etc were lost, but I will be starting a new database soon.
I am also hoping to learn a bit of VB so that I can post a program
containing the database (so anyone who wants to and doesn't have MS Office,
can use it) which I will put on my web site. Its mainly a matter of learning
the relevant bits of VB, which I cannot do as speedily as I would like,
because I recently injured my back and cannot sit at the computer for
extended periods of time.
As for my symptoms, they seem to vary from day to day, week to week. Mainly
its pain primarily in the joints of my fingers, hands, elbows, shoulders,
toes, ankles, feet, knees, back, neck and face (of all places). But the most
painful and most uncomfortable is the pain emmanating from my hip, with my
hands running a close second, especially if I have been typing or writing
for a few minutes or more. Sometimes the pain gets worse at night and
sometimes (more often than not) my joints are extremely stiff for a few
hours after I wake up.
With regards to the symptoms I get when the air pressure changes, this is a
strange one and to be honest, I haven't met, or spoken to anyone who has
reported the same smptoms. Not that I have really had that much chance to
talk to others with arthritis, having been ignorant of the fact that there
were newsgroups and web sites dedicated to arthritis until quite recently
and to be perfectly honest, I simply never thought to look.
I can be very specific as to the symptoms which are always exactly the same,
but I am only able to approximate the air density I measure,
a) I only have one of those extremely cheap barometers which tells you the
condition of the weather, i.e. rainy, sunny etc. and
b) because it has been such a long time since I took any readings, so I am
not exactly sure what the numbers are.
The readings, at which I find myself experiencing my symptoms (which are
always the same) are (and remember these are only rough readings which could
be entirely wrong barometrically speaking)
almost always between 996 -1002 millibars. Please don't take this as gospel,
because as I mentioned it has been a long time since I took any readings and
the actual reading could be between 1006 and 1012.
I do however remember that almost always, the weather was in between
changing from either raining to not raining, or vice versa, indicating that
humidity might play a large part in my experiencing my symptoms and that the
change in air pressure was merely an indicator of the change in humidity.
As to the symptoms I experience, this is where I experience doubts that it
has anything to do with arthritis, the way most people say they experience
it. I begin to feel weak and drowsy. Every part of my body, joints etc,
which normally experiences what I believe is pain due to arthritis, suddenly
experiences the same pain, but maginfied by a factor of say ten to fifteens
times the norm. Also, my muscles begin to hurt and I can actually feel the
strength draining from them as the barometers needle pushes towards the
midway point, 999 millibars. I have also noticed that my mental faculties
begin to dull at this point and that it becomes an effort to concentrate. I
cannot go to sleep because the pain keeps me awake, and I cannot do anything
physically because I feel so weak.
Apart from the first rheumatologist "all" of the remaining rheumatologist I
have consulted (and I emphasise the word ALL) have been given a letter by
me, describing these exact symptoms, which they summararily disregard,
telling me that that isn't arthritis and that that aspect of my illness is
all in my mind and that I should consult a psychotherapist.
The strange thing is that I know exactly when my arthritis began and what
brought it on and that I neither experienced any pain in my joints, nor did
I undego the symptoms I have related which I believe are due to changes in
air pressure.
I was 32 (ten years ago) and was recovering from a cartilage operation on my
right knee. I had had two operations on the inside left knee prior to this
and apart from the usual pain killers, for a few weeks after the operation,
I wasn't given any anti inflammatory drugs. On this last occasion however,
the incision did not heal at all well and the area surrounding it, had
become inflamed and sore. A friend of mine who was a doctor, advised me to
ask my GP to give me an injection of "depomedrone with lidocaine", which
funnily enough he did ( I sauy funnily enough, becuase never before in my
experience had any doctor actually given me a drug which a friend had
recommended. Exactly one hour after the injection, I experienced a pain up
and down my spine and from that day forth, I had experienced the pains I
related in this posting.
Of course when I told my doctor and the rheumatologist I had in due course
consulted that I believed that the depomedrone and lidaocaine was
responsible for inducing my arthritis, or the symptoms I related to them
concerning the change in air pressure, I was of course told by all that this
was nonsenscial. I even met someone who had told me that they had read
somewhere in some medical journal that depomedrone and lidocaine taken
together, could indeed induce arthritis, but when I told any doctor about
this, I was again put down as some kind of nut.
I have since consulted homeopath and have been prescribed "cannabis indica"
which seems to at least dull the pain a little and enabled me to at least
indulge in a little light exercise, which also seemed to help.
I also noted that when the weather turned cold here in england, that I used
to turn the central heating up, but that I always experienced more pain as a
result. Since last november however I have not had the central heating
higher than 18 deg C and this also seems to help relieve the pain somewhat.
If my writing seems at times somewhat disjointed, please bear in mind that I
cannot type for extened periods of time and that I am trying to pack as much
as I can in to as least words as possible.
yusuf o
