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Community / Post and Read AP Stories / Rheumatoid Arthritis
Walt Weiss
Rheumatoid Arthritis
waltweiss@comcast.net
July 28th, 2010
My name is Walt and my RA story began in the early spring of 1998 at Trapper's Lake Lodge above
Meeker, Colorado where my wife and I were helping her brother, Tim, renovate the lodge and cabins. Tim
asked me to help bring several rental rowboats across Trapper's Lake from a campground on the other
side of the lake, a distance of about a half mile. I agreed, so Tim dropped another friend and I off at the
campground and we each took a rowboat with two other boats tied behind onto the lake. After rowing
for about a half an hour, the wind picked up and a snow squall covered us with wet snow. We finally
made it to the lodge dock and back to the lodge looking like half frozen snowmen. My left thumb started
to swell and I thought I had sprained it. By the next morning I could not move my thumb and my whole
hand ached. Two of the guests at the lodge were surgeons and examined my hand. Their diagnosis
was that I had stressed the joints in my hand to a point that they were inflamed causing the swelling.
My hand and thumb bothered me all summer. By the next fall the swelling was gone but the joints in my
hand had begun to swell and the pain was a constant thing. A routine annual visit to my cardiologist ( I
had a stent in 1996) resulted in his suggestion that I see a rheumatologist at Rose Hospital in Denver.
The young doctor, Karen Komenski, was very serious and apologetic when she told my wife and I that
her diagnosis was rheumatoid arthritis. We both had big smiles on our faces that we couldn't contain as
we had received word from our real estate agent in Hawaii (where Marka's folks lived and where we had
visited them every other year for ten years) just that afternoon that our bid for a condo on the North Shore
of Oahu had been accepted and that we would be leaving for Hawaii shortly to close on the deal. Our
reaction to the news was a shock to the young doctor. After I explained our non-reaction to her news as
well as the fact that I suspected that I had RA before her diagnosis, she outlined a course of treatment
and prescribed sulfasalazine 500mg twice a day for starters. I followed this regimen for about a year until
Dr. Komenski left to work for NIH on the east coast.
I then became a patient of Dr. Vance Bray at the Arthritis Clinic of Colorado. My RA was getting
progressively worse with both hands swollen, covered with nodules and little strength left in either hand. I
began to suffer flairs about twice a month in my shoulders and a debilitating flair in my left foot after a long walk around Waikiki. Research on the internet led me to the Road Back website and I read all of the
postings. Upon our return to Colorado in 2000, I went to my rheumatologist, Dr. Bray, and asked him
about trying minocycline. We talked about it at length and he said that it couldn't hurt and wrote my initial
prescription for 100mg twice a day. He cautioned me that results were unpredictable and not to be
disappointed if it did not work.
I started taking 100mg each morning and evening along with the sulfasalazine for three months before
dropping the sulfasalazine and within six months my nodules were gone as well as most of the joint
swelling! During this time period I waited for the Jarisch-Herxheimer response, the apparent worsening
of symptoms which can seem like a flare but that is actually caused by the body's inflammatory response
to cell die-off. My reaction to the antibiotic therapy was very subdued and I did not notice any severe
increase or decrease in my symptoms. Although I had some rough periods with pain in both shoulders
making it impossible to sleep without heavy duty pain medication, I could tell that things were improving.
Any overexertion on my part would still bring on a flair (usually localized to a shoulder or hand) that
would subside in a couple of days. After about a year on 200mg daily, I was down to a single flair a
month but noticed black patches on my legs. My dermatologist told me to cut back on the minocycline
as I was becoming extremely sun sensitive. I cut back to 100mg daily without any ill effects although I
still am sun sensitive. Using a spray sunblock seems to be the most effective means to prevent further
skin discoloration. For the past ten years, I have taken 100mg daily without any other side effects and
without interaction with my heart medication (my cardiologist my minocycline prescription annually). I still
get a flair once in a while when I do something foolish like swinging a hammer all day or climbing up and
down our hill cutting wood! Ive learned to slow down and smell the roses. Without the work of the Road
Back Foundation and this website, I am sure I would have never read about the work of Dr. Brown and
antibiotic therapy. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
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