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Time to Switch Rheumatologists?

I've been seeing a rheumatologist for many years who has never been willing to commit to a diagnosis one way or the other. I've had many joint issues along with dry eyes, severe psoriasis (plaque, inverse and guttate) and fatigue. I also have Hashimoto's thyroiditis. No shortage of autoimmune here.

I've had psoriasis since I was 16 or 17 and I'm 55 now. I was complaining of severe wrist pain and they were plainly swollen but the plain films were allegedly negative according to him. So, he put me on Meloxicam and that's that. Fast forward to next appt and my wrists are worse and this Meloxicam is minimal in benefit and he finally acquiesced and sent me for an MRI of my wrist. The DX is scapholunate advanced collapse (SLAC wrist) which is an arthritic condition brought on by a past trauma to the wrist then arthritis sets in and damages the scapholunate tendon or some such thing. Bottom line I need surgery and I have it in both wrists.

I go to see the surgeon who looks at the plain film where he shows it to me clearly....didn't even care about the MRI so clearly my rheumatologist doesn't know how the heck to read an x-ray very well at least in my case. So I have the 1st surgery which I'm in my 7th week of recovery now and my wrist actually isn't too bad; however, my fingers and knuckles blew up after surgery which I initially thought was just from the surgery but now I'm beginning to believe this isn't the case. They are really painful to the touch and the surgeon doesn't seem to think I should be swelling this far out post op. I'm wondering if trauma from surgery caused a psoriatic arthritis flare in that hand. Not that I've yet to be diagnosed.

It's all very frustrating and depressing. I am in the process of getting referred to another rheumatologist but who knows how long that'll take. I know it's kind of a rambling story and frankly there's so much more I could say but I guess the bottom line is I feel like my doctor just does not give a damn. Rheumatologists are hard to come by so I stuck it out but now I feel like I'm just better off on my own if I'm going to feel worse after I leave an office than when I entered.

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