A Young Wife’s Tale

I’m tired of defending David’s diagnosis of Psoriatic Arthritis. He was diagnosed, and rediagnosed by two rheumatologists. A family doctor saw copies of David’s labs and concurred with their diagnosis.

Every doctor we see wants to go over David’s medical history to be sure the diagnosis is accurate. Every nurse and dental hygienist*. It’s a good thing, in that doctors are paying attention. If there is anything else that could possibly be contributing to David’s joint pain, one of these medical professionals will catch it. (We are currently exploring the possibility that David has fibromyalgia in addition to arthritis.)

It’s a bad thing, in that some doctors don’t believe David has arthritis. One doctor even questioned the diagnosis because David is “awful young to have Psoriatic Arthritis.” With that doctor, I chose to ignore all of her comments on arthritis because she obviously knows less about arthritis than I do, and apparently has never heard of juvenile arthritis.

The reason I go with him is because David tends to put on a happy face in front of other people. I’ve lost count of the number of people who’ve told me, “You’d never know David had arthritis.” He doesn’t complain. He minimizes his symptoms, even with his doctors.

It seems that there is a shortage of MDs here in South Jersey. I searched for the various specialties from the list of doctors in our area given to us by our new health insurance company. First, I needed a doctor for myself. I found a short list. Many of them were DOs, not MDs. DOs are great, I’m sure, but we already see a chiropractor and sometimes an acupuncturist. We already get the holistic side of medicine from them. I think we’re allowed to want MDs given our past medical histories.

I read a blog today where a woman was diagnosed with Psoriatic Arthritis, and later discovered her Celiac Disease was the main culprit in her psoriasis. That got me thinking. One of David’s sisters was diagnosed with Celiac Disease.

David doesn’t have the flu. The doctor specifically said, “This doesn’t mean you’re immune from the flu for the rest of the season. You just don’t have the flu today.” We thought that was really funny.