This month marks 10 months now that I’ve been on Humira. Overall, it has worked great, and I have not experienced any side effects. It was a little rough getting started, but I really feel like I have continued to make progress since March and feel the best I have in a long time. I’m continuing to take NSAIDs less frequently, without as much flaring in my wrists. They still have a limited range of motion, but they don’t hurt often and it takes fewer doses of Naproxen to keep them in line! I mentioned back in August that I was able to slide my wedding ring off over my middle joint. Well, since then, that finger has continued to decrease in size as the inflammation comes down, and I have consistently been able to take my ring completely off!
I feel kind of badly for being excited about being able to take my ring off — I have no reason to want to take it off — but it excites me because I use that finger as a measure of success in my RA treatment, and it is so encouraging to know that the enlargement of that joint was not, in fact, permanent. I also told my husband that I prefer being able to choose to keep my ring on rather than to simply have it stuck on my finger. But…I’ll show you why I was really excited to be able to take it off….
I was finally able to thoroughly clean it (first time in 2+ years that I could scrub at it from all sides!), and now it looks so pretty and sparkly! I’ll tell you what — a couple years of not getting that thing off sure wreaked some havoc on the inside of it. I mean…think about it…my ring was on for two years worth of making pizza dough! I cleaned as best as I could from the outside, but I definitely found some, um, leftovers when I was finally able to clean the inner part! Yuck.
At any rate, I have my next appointment with my rheumatologist next Monday. It’s time to come up with my list of questions, but I’m anticipating an easy appointment. I am not sure whether or not he’ll want to do x-rays yet. It’s been almost a year since my last ones. I’ll be very curious to see if there’s any additional damage that has occurred on my wrists since then. I am also going to ask my doctor to prescribe a prednisone burst that I can take with me to this year’s ACR meeting in November (yes…I’m going again this year…more on that later!). I definitely learned last year that a whole day on my feet is not as easy on my feet and knees as I anticipated! I’ll be there for the entire conference this year, and I want to make sure I’m feeling my best!
At the Water's Edge 
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