Hi Everyone,
I wanted to update all of you on how my appointment went on Tuesday with my Rheumatolgist. It was the longest appointment I have ever had with him and the outcome was interesting.
First of all he is convinced that the intestinal ulcers are auto immune related since I do not have a stomach to produce acid and I am on triple doses of every PPI drug known to man along with other acid surpressing meds that obviously are not working. I have been tested for everything under the sun that could/may cause ulcers and of course everything always comes back fine. It is virtually impossible to get ulcers of the magnitude I get them without a stomach to produce acid. Leave it to me to defy all odds.:lol:
Moving forward he is putting me on daily low dose Prednisone and Tramadol for the wide spread pain and swelling through out my body. I will continue Plaquenil until my next appointment in 6 weeks and then he will stop the Plaquenil and start me on Methotrexate. He does not feel the Plaquenil is helping me and we need to go stronger.
For the APS he can not put me on aspirin regimen due to the intestinal ulcers and certainly can not even consider coumadin so I have started on Plavix daily to try to control the APS issues I am dealing with.
He has ordered another round of blood work as he feels based on how I presented, things he observed and my history that now Scleroderma is rearing its ugly head.


Off the script he has ordered:
ANA, C2, C3, C4, CBC with DIFF, Comprehensive metabolic panel, CRP, ENA, Sed Rate, SSA/SSB, Urinalysis with micro, Anti Scl70 and something I have never heard of that he hand wrote on the script.....C, esterase inhibitor level.
I will go have the blood drawn either today or tomorrow and as always the lab will cc a copy to my house for my records.
I go back in 6 weeks and we will start the Methotrexate then. I would love for anyone who takes methotrexate to offer their experience on this drug and in the meantime I am busy doing searches and trying to educate myself about the next step in the process of treatment.
I hope your all doing well. I am sorry it took some time for me to post this but my mom is very ill and life is busy with chaos.
Take care and sorry this post was so long.
I wanted to update all of you on how my appointment went on Tuesday with my Rheumatolgist. It was the longest appointment I have ever had with him and the outcome was interesting.
First of all he is convinced that the intestinal ulcers are auto immune related since I do not have a stomach to produce acid and I am on triple doses of every PPI drug known to man along with other acid surpressing meds that obviously are not working. I have been tested for everything under the sun that could/may cause ulcers and of course everything always comes back fine. It is virtually impossible to get ulcers of the magnitude I get them without a stomach to produce acid. Leave it to me to defy all odds.:lol:
Moving forward he is putting me on daily low dose Prednisone and Tramadol for the wide spread pain and swelling through out my body. I will continue Plaquenil until my next appointment in 6 weeks and then he will stop the Plaquenil and start me on Methotrexate. He does not feel the Plaquenil is helping me and we need to go stronger.
For the APS he can not put me on aspirin regimen due to the intestinal ulcers and certainly can not even consider coumadin so I have started on Plavix daily to try to control the APS issues I am dealing with.
He has ordered another round of blood work as he feels based on how I presented, things he observed and my history that now Scleroderma is rearing its ugly head.
Off the script he has ordered:
ANA, C2, C3, C4, CBC with DIFF, Comprehensive metabolic panel, CRP, ENA, Sed Rate, SSA/SSB, Urinalysis with micro, Anti Scl70 and something I have never heard of that he hand wrote on the script.....C, esterase inhibitor level.
I will go have the blood drawn either today or tomorrow and as always the lab will cc a copy to my house for my records.
I go back in 6 weeks and we will start the Methotrexate then. I would love for anyone who takes methotrexate to offer their experience on this drug and in the meantime I am busy doing searches and trying to educate myself about the next step in the process of treatment.
I hope your all doing well. I am sorry it took some time for me to post this but my mom is very ill and life is busy with chaos.
Take care and sorry this post was so long.