Hi Jen! Many times, soft tissue damage or swelling won't been seen on x-ray. They will palpitate the area, fancy word for pushing on it till it hurts , and pretty much go from there. A lot of my soft tissue damage is from the synovial lining around the joints being swollen and they can see that but if you have ever sprained an ankle or something of the sorts, that kind of stuff usually doesn't show up!
I'm not totally up on my Lymphoma. Not sure if the glads actually hurt or just swell? Not sure how the blood work would turn out. I haven't looked into too much but the rheumy brought it up several times and when I asked her how would I know if I had it, she said the first symptom is often the gland swelling. I've just kind of filed that in the "Gee, that would suck if I got that" category as I've just got too much else to worry about right now!
A lot of auto-immune issues, especially in the early stages are kind of like IBS, not always a definitive test to say yes or no. If the dr doesn't take time to actually read your list of symptoms, find another dr. My old rheumy often blew me off like that but I had typed out FOUR pages of stuff for the new rheumy and she sat down and read it in front of me and asked questions as she was reading!
I'll be at work until 6 today then I'm taking along weekend to catch up on house work and stuff so I won't be back on line until next Wednesday but please keep us posted!!
-------------------- Taking it one day at a time.....
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Re: lupus/RA -- what to expect/ask rheumatologist?
, and pretty much go from there. A lot of my soft tissue damage is from the synovial lining around the joints being swollen and they can see that but if you have ever sprained an ankle or something of the sorts, that kind of stuff usually doesn't show up!
