Mount Jefferson, White Mountains
I have been an avid hiker since the beginning of 2013. I worked really hard to improve my hiking ability to go farther and faster. Just when I thought I was ready for more challenge, that’s when in July 2015, I started to have joint inflammation and pain in both of my knees, mostly on the right knee. At first, I ignored it and would ice the knees which would make me feel better. But later it became severe. Here is the chronological order of events that took place until my diagnosis:
July 2015 – September 2015: I visited a local Orthopedic near my apartment, who diagnosed me with Osteoarthritis and prescribed X-Ray followed by MRI. In the meantime he sent me to Physical Therapy (PT). The PT did nothing, and the pain kept on getting worse to a point I could barely even walk. One night the pain got so strong that I could not even sleep. I stopped hiking towards the end of September.
With the report of the MRI, the doctor extracted fluid from both knees, gave me cortisone injection on the right knee and sent me home saying I should not do hiking or running (I don’t run) anymore.
October 2015: I started to feel better once Orthopedic doctor removed the fluid and gave me the cortisone injection. But I knew something was wrong.
November 2015 – December 2015: I made an appointment with a sports medicine specialist. He re-ordered the MRI. He too later gave me no answer to what was causing the pain and told me I NEEDED TO LEARN TO LIVE with it. EXCUSE ME! He told me I could hike but to ice my knees at the end.
I resumed hiking, but it was with pain :(.
January 2016: At that point, I started to search my symptoms online to see if I could figure out a cause. It took me an hour of online search to realize that my symptoms were perhaps caused by Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA), an autoimmune disease that causes joint inflammation, pain, and damage, and if untreated it could make the person disabled and cause organ damage overtime.
I immediately called a Rheumatologist. The receptionist asked me if I was clinically diagnosed, I told her no. She then told me doctor would not see me unless I was diagnosed, but she said she could take my symptoms to the doctor to decide if the doctor would see me and that she would call me back.
They never called me back so I called the office once again two days later. The receptionist said the doctor agreed to see me. The appointment she gave me was three months later.
April 2016: Two days before my appointment date, the office called and said they would have to reschedule as the doctor would not be available due to a family emergency. The new appointment was another month later. So four months after my personal diagnosis of the disease, I finally got to see a Rheumatologist.
May 2016: On the day of my appointment, the doctor looked at my MRI report, asked me a few questions, prescribed me some blood tests. She did not think I had RA, wink wink.
Two days later my Rheumatologist’s office started calling me and leaving me messages. I got nervous. I knew they found something. I did not call them back. I had my regular yearly appointment at the PCP. When I went to see my PCP, he looked worried and asked me if I got calls from my RA doctor. I said yes. He asked me if I called them back. I said no. He then told me, with a sad face, I was diagnosed with RA and I should call the RA doctor back and make an appointment. I was happy and sad at the same time. Happy knowing that now I knew what was causing my pain. Sad that it is an autoimmune, incurable disease that I would have to live with for the rest of my life.
I called my RA doctor back, and they gave me an appointment the very next day. My doctor put me into Methotrexate.
So, almost a year after my symptoms started, I finally was on the right path. And that too because of my self diagnosis of the disease that I did not even know that existed!!!
Since I was diagnosed with RA, I have done the following climbs / training:
- Two of the seven summits: Kilimanjaro, Elbrus
- Cascade Volcanoes: Mount Rainier, Adams, Hood
- Climbed two CO 14ers: Huron Peak and Mount Elbert and turned around 200′ shy of Longs Peak summit due to bad weather
- Attended a six-day Mountaineering Train Course in the Cascade Mountains
- Completed Catskills 35er and Winter 35er
- Completed Adirondack 6er peaks over one weekend
- Almost completing Adirondacks 46er and New England 67
- Planning to
- Complete Adirondacks 46er and New England 67
- Train for Denali over Winter ’17-’18 season
- Climb Aconcagua in January 2018
- Climb Denali in June 2018
- Eventually climb all seven summits
How RA is Still Effecting Me:
- My shoulder (especially left) is in constant pain
- Fingers and toes, as well as wrists, are often in pain
- Any kind of descending, be it on a stair or from a mountaintop, is painful on my knees. Hence, my downhill is the same pace as or sometimes even slower than my uphill. However, I am exercising at the gym and training with the hope to make it better. It is better now compared to how it was before I was diagnosed and started my treatment but not as good as someone without RA. Hopefully it will get to be the same as any other normal person and I can start enjoying going down a mountain as I do when going up it.