Tomorrow is the first time my teacher disability comes before the medical review committee of my teacher retirement board. Historically disability goes through if your personal physician submits his records and fills out the application with a clear statement of disability as to why a person can no longer teach. My rheumy was awesome. We did the application together and he hammered at the fact that my RA is severe, very symptomatic, rapidly progressive, etc..... We also listed that I was disabled due to osteoarthritis of feet and spine with lack of mobility and lack of ability to stand up and teach. The fact that I can't work more than a day or two a week was reiterated several times, that I needed to rest my inflamed joints frequently was mentioned as well. We not only listed RA and OA as diagnoses but also fatigue, depression, chronic bilateral plantar fasciitis, Lumbar Back Disorder and Pain, hypertension, and possibly a decrease in cognitive functioning. Doc said I had no functional ability to remain a teacher. He even mentioned I have muscle loss and myositits.
I am RA seropositive but never scored high on ESR or C Reactive Protein. But you can see the swelling in my knees from 10 feet away though my pants yet these blood markers are normal. I did have a very high Vectra DA (a test for disease activity using many blood markers) last Winter before starting DMARDS. My rheumy is fully aware that less than 50% of RA patients score postivie on these bio markers, that meds can throw them off and that the only way to see inflammation in the joint would be to put microchips in each joint. He said he treats the joint not the blood and I respect him for his forward thinking. What concerns me is that the medical review committee are older semi-retired doctors who may buy into this stuff. On the other hand I have studied the minutes of their meetings and while they've had to ask for complete records I never saw them ask for a newer lab result, just sets of missing records. My new rheumy and my old one) have my joints pretty much all listed as tender, swollen, and with limited range of motion. Considering ESR and C Reactive Protein has false negatives I would hope they go with all the physical examinations over a non-specific blood test, or put another way the words of my doctor over their pre-conceived notions seeing no one on the panel is a rheumatologist.

As always I am worried and I probably have a much more legitimate claim than 80% of the applications. I really can no longer funtion(:

Considering the above and the fact that RA has yet to be denied my retirement board should I be worried?