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Hello Maz,
and thank you for the kind words, and for the link!
[user=27]Maz[/user] wrote:I can't remember if I shared this with you already, but in light of the above statement, you might find the following recently published study interesting….not only in terms of antibiotic therapy being used in ReA, but in respect of ReA being underdiagnosed with some regularity and thus leading patients with arthritides that are clearly linked to triggering infections being put on immunosuppressive therapies unnecessarily and perhaps to their longterm detriment:
I have been aware of this study for several months, but have only scanned for reports at pubmed and clinicaltrials (I see now that you've mentioned it twice here :headbang:), where I found out about it. Very interesting, only sad that it took so long, Carter and colleagues did publish a prospective study with combination treatment (rifampin and doxycycline) in 2004, which showed it to be effective. However, all reviews that I've seen mentioning that finding have been very cautious about it, as almost all previous studies on antibiotics as treatment of ReA have showed it to be ineffective. This recent study should counter a lot of the questioning from the weaker protocol used in the 2004 study.
T'was ever thus… we can go to physicians of various areas of specialty and receive as many paths to treatment. In the field of rheumatology, it's generally a question of “picking your poison.” I chose antibiotic therapy, knowing chronic infection was at the root of my RA, and just seemed to be the most sensible approach. I realized it would take longer than palliative approaches and understood I may incur joint damage along the way, but felt after weighing the risk/benefits of joint damage over organ damage, decided a joint replacement would be preferable, if that should happen. I am now at 96% improvement, after 3 years of therapy and no need for joint replacements. 🙂
Congratulations to placing the right bet! 😀
We all become experts in our own diseases by the end of it. Three years ago, I was clueless and thought RA was something the elderly got, if they were unlucky. Having done quite a bit research now, collecting studies for RBF, I'm firmly in the camp that all it's more than likely that all rheumatic diseases are reactive in the sense that they are all reacting to some pathogenic offender(s). There can be so much overlap in rheumatic disease that probably the labels are of less import than identifying the underlying infections. And, from this starting point, determining an appropriate antibiotic protocol for each individual is probably of more import.
Yes, I have come to much the same “working hypothesis” for my own thinking. Elderly being the most common victims is an interesting observation, still. Will post separately on this later.
You have about a month to wait for your appt at Breakspear, but hope you will hang around and share your researches with us and let us know how your appt goes.
Peace, Maz
Absolutely, thank you for the input and support!
PS Don't want to presume anything, as you are such an avid researcher, but, if this helps, low hemaglobin can be related to pernicious anemia caused by lack of B12. If supplementing with orals, B12 sublinguals (dissolved under the tongue) are best for absorption in combination with a B-Complex oral supp, as all the B's work synergistically together. Sometimes B12 shots are needed, if absorption is a problem or pernicious anemia is severe.
About anemia, my Hemoglobin was 143 mg/ml both in Nov. and Dec. (I reported a too low figure for March 1999, it was just a couple of units below the limit for anemia), we'll see later this week if it still is,and if the WBC is continuig up towards normal. Only the other day did I find your mentioning in an old thread that a low WBC as common in a flare, I perceived disease activity to be fairly high when I was first tested with a low WBC of 2600 ( in Nov last year, 3000 in Dec). I've seen a few posts here on rbfbb about low WBCs, and will look into it more.
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