Rheumatoid Arthritis Support Group

Oh my gosh, that sounds horrible. I'm sorry, I never even heard of that. I can relate to chest pain, however, having been in a car wreck and fracturing my sternum. A light sneeze will send you right into the pit of hell. I feel for you.

Oh my goodness, I just looked it up, now my car accident seems so insignificant in comparison. It says something about anxiety - do you do slow controlled breathing? Sorry, I'm no help. I really hope your doc gets you some help really soon.

Other then taking a stethoscope and hearing the "rubbing" sound that comes from pericarditis did they do any other tests? Blood work, chest x-ray, echocardiogram, ECG, CT, or MRI?

I am no way a doctor but they need to find root cause in order to effectively treat it. For me they said yeah it's the RA causing the sac around my heart to flare but after looking at my blood work they went doi perhaps we should give you some antibiotics for the bacteria that's there to!

At least the increase of pain when laying down fits the bill perfectly for it. And I hate to say it but mine lasted several weeks and they say that is not uncommon. Even with prednisone it takes some time to get all the fluid that's built up reabsorbed.

As for the pain only narcotics and leaning forward seemed to help me.

Thanks you guys! I really hope this doesnt last several weeks it really really sucks! A fractured sternum sounds really painful too! I dont feel like I have anxiety right now but I will try to do some slow breathing!
Smith101 they are finally doing my bloodwork so I should hear something tomorrow. How high of steroids did they put you on for how long? did they do anything else?

Thats odd, I have also been experiencing that. They have put my on antihypertensives, to try to bring down my vasculitis and Raynauds, but what I found is it is dropping my BP way too low (80/50). But, I also have been having chest pain and tightness, awaiting a referral appt. with a cardiologist. Mine seems to have improved some since I stopped the BP meds, but I too am on Enbrel and (currently) Prednisone. Keep us updated.

Heather

Heather please let me know how you are doing and what they say. Thats scary that your BP was so low! glad that it is back to normal now!
Do you get fevers at all? I get them every night and they are gone most of the time in the mornings I dont feel like I have a cold or anything either. How long have you been on the enebrel?

So far for me all I know is my liver counts are elevated and my blood sugar is super high but I dont think either of those would affect the chest pain. I see the reg Dr tomorrow about my blood sugar and hopefully she will have some ideas too I like her So much better than my Rheumy!

Originally I was put on a drug called colchine but after two weeks I hadn't responded to that and then was put on a whooping 80mgs of prednisone. I took that high of a dose for a little over a month. At which point it was beginning to do some other very strange stuff to me and I quickly got them to get me on a plan to get off of it.

They did discuss going in and actually draining it, kind of like they did when I had pleurisy (where the sacs around your lungs get filled with fluid). But as I did not enjoy that experience one bit at all I pretty much explained to them let's not go that route!

I did have chest pains in the beginning. There is lots of information on this if you google it. Here is one from http://arthritisinsight.com/medica...

The Heart

Not even the heart is safe from the grasp of rheumatoid arthritis. Pericarditis, an inflammation of the heart lining, is the most frequent heart problem caused by RA. As many as 40%-50% of those with rheumatoid arthritis have some evidence of pericarditis noted on autopsy. However the actual number of people with pericarditis symptoms and clinical evidence is much smaller, probably around 2%. It usually occurs when arthritis is active and virtually only in those people who are seropostive.

An inflammation of the coronary arteries is shown in up to 20% of people with RA at autopsy, both heart block and myocardial infarction have been reported as fatal complications of this inflammation. Rheumatoid nodules can be present in any of the heart structures, and an inflammation of the heart muscle. The valves and other heart structures can also become inflamed.

Cinnamint
That was an excellent article. Very consice not too much medical lingo but really hit home on the meaning of "systemic".

When doctors tell a patient they have a systemic disease I think they often fail to explain what the word acutally means.