Finger fun

Hope you all had a lovely Christmas! Mine was wonderful, I ate waaaay too much and drank waaaaay too much and just chilled out with the family.

Just wanted to do an update on my hand. I went to get my injection on Thursday morning, and I was pretty nervous but a close friend came with me so that kept the mood lighthearted. The visit was also made more exciting by the fact that a quite famous Scottish celebrity was in the rheumatology clinic at the same time as me. I can't really say who because that would be disrespectful to the person's privacy, but it was quite a random thing to happen. I tried to question my doc about it but she wouldnt tell me the gossip (of course!) and just said that the doctors at my clinic are very well respected so we get a lot of people choosing to go there. Well..that's a relief then! I can't find anything on the internet about this person in relation to arthritis, so I'm not sure if it was maybe an initial visit for a diagnosis or maybe their symptoms are very well controlled and not much is known publicly.

Aaaaaanyway... the injection was fine, I flapped about lots stressing out but the doc put some numbing cream on it (which looked a lot like mayo) and after about 40 minutes the finger was ready to be injected. She didn't need to drain anything, just shove the steroid in. I was really surprised at how little it hurt, maybe because of the cream or she just got the exact spot. It felt a bit strange when the steroid went in and that was it.

They said it takes about 24-48 hours to work. The next day I wasn't noticing any improvement, and I felt a bit depressed on Christmas morning because it still wasn't better (perhaps it was even a bit worse) but then about 50 hours after the injection.... A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE happened. About 7pm it just started shrinking. By the time I went to bed i had about 80% bend back.

So now we're on..day 5 since the injection and I had 95% bend on it this morning and almost 100% by this evening. So happy!

I don't know how long it'll last but I'm hoping that by the time it wears off I'll be over the flare... I have a check up at the end of January so we'll see what happens by then before discussing if I need a change in meds. My feet are still misbehaving on a regular basis. But for now...yaayy the finger's sorted!

Sorry this has been a big post about not much, but since it was my first injection and first experience with a steroid I felt I had to write about it.

Here are some pics of its progress:

This was it in all its beauty at some point last week before the injection


This was it on Friday, a day after the injection looking worse.. and the middle finger joining in a bit for a laugh.


And this is it today....yaaaay


Just as a comparison this is my left hand, which has never swelled so yeah.. the right hand is *almost* back to normal.


Strange, the joy you can feel at such a small thing that you know is probabaly a temporary improvement.. but it still makes me so happy!

Happy New Year to you all!