Young Arthur

My current diagnosis is Seronegative Spondyloarthritis. This diagnosis is not exact as it describes a family of related conditions including: Psoriatic Arthritis (PsA) – peripheral arthritis with or without axial arthritis usually with skin or nail psoriasis (or a family history of skin or nail psoriasis in first degree relatives) Ankylosing Spondylitis/Axial Spondyloarthritis (AS) – predominantly axial arthritis characterised by inflammatory back pain though people with AS may also commonly have arthritis in shoulders and hips – can also have arthritis in other peripheral joints but not as common as shoulder and hips Reiters syndrome/reactive arthritis (ReA) – arthritis which occurs after certain infections in certain individuals Undifferentiated Spondyloarthritis (USpA) – arthritis which is seronegative but does not yet fit the criteria of the first 3 conditions So what does seronegative actually mean? Well in this case ...

Yesterday I finished my last day of University and I am officially a graduand until my graduation in July, and what better way to celebrate than learning how to inject a biological medication for the first time... Obviously I am joking but I do feel like this might be the turning point in my arthritis, which a welcomed change! I said in my last post that I wanted to write a post about what happens at a biologics clinic for arthritis because I honestly couldn't find much information from the point of view of a patient and being slightly OCD, I quite like knowing what might happen. But please note this is my experience, and the process at your hospital may be different. First things first, I was referred to my hospitals biologics clinic because my arthritis was not controlled on methotrexate alone and the other DMARD (hydroxychloroquine) I had tried had given me a lot of heartburn so I'd stopped it. This means that from a peripheral joint perspective, my arthritis was active ...