Rheumatoid Arthritis Q & A

I have RA. I have lost my voice for over 10 days now. About 2 weeks before I lost my voice I had a 103 temp with some very bad days. I do not have a temp now or a cold that would cause voice lost.

DOES RA EFFECT OR ENLARGE THE HEART. I AM 39 AND HAVE RA. I THOUGHT IT WAS CARPEL TUNNEL BUT AFTER SURGERY, I FOUND THAT I HAD RA.I HAVE NEVER TESTED POSITIVE FOR RA FACTOR. IS THIS NORMAL? A ECHO CARDOGRAM SHOWED SLIGHT ENLARGMENT OF THE HEART. I THOUGHT THAT MIGHT BE DUE TO GAINING 35 LBS I’M 6’4 AND 285 ANY SUGGESTIONS?

Well, according to the rheumatologist, her joints show’s no sign of tenderness or swelling, nothing indicates the present of RA. But we went through a full health check anyway to find out anything wrong. Initial results shows no anomalies, but details report is not due in another week or so. Would a normal person have a RA factor of 719 ? is this consider very high?

3 years ago I had surgery on my nose for a hole in the cartlige between the nostrils, so doctors wanted to know the reason for the hole. Blood results were an RA of 232 which doctors said was very high. Rheumatologist said no symptons, probably a false positive. One year later I had pain in both wrists shooting up to elbow, shooting up to both shoulders and shooting to clavical. 3 Months went by in pain, but Rh Doctor could not see me for 4 months, by the time I went I felt better, but new blood work revealed a 255 RA Factor. Doctor gave me Naproxin to take if I am in pain again. This has helped alot. I have flair ups quite often, but I just take the naproxen, but Doctor said with such a high RA factor if i had rh arthritis I would have severe symptoms. Could I have Rh arthrtis?

I have Anemia due to my RA. How low dose the numbers have to go before I should do any thing about it and is there any thing that can be done for it?

I am 42 yrs old and I woke up one morning 2 years ago and could not bend my fingers and my ankles, it only lasted a few minutes and never longer but also developed pericarditis..there is debate among my doctors whether or not I have sero-negative RA. I have been treated with Methotrexate and Humira (1 yr), but the symptoms always came back (only in fingers though) and then they would increase my methotrexate again and I’d be fine only to have symptoms in hands come back. I went off Metho due to side effects and then during an illness stopped the Humira… I have not taken any medicine for 9 weeks and feel the same as when I was on all the meds and no worse…My doctor wants me back on Humira but I feel that if I my symptoms are no worse off the drugs than on and my sed rate is staying between 17 to 21 and 2 years later still no antibodies or RF that I maybe be able to stay off medicine and not experiance joint damage? Do severity of symptoms correlate with disease activity (specifically joint damage)? meaning less symptoms less damage and visa versa.