More NHS woes

It turns out that they've lost my referral for Guy's Hospital. Just as I'm starting to worry that the tendinitis might be returning in my fingers I discover that my referral hasn't gone through. My GP is faxing them the referral letter again but last time I checked it's about a 6 week wait there from referral to appointment. This would put it a 9 weeks from my initial time of referral. It just serves to remind me that I still have no diagnosis from the NHS. In fact, all they seem interested in doing is arguing with the diagnosis I got privately, from one of the most highly respected rheumatologists in the world.

While all this is going on I'm trying to tackle my tendinitis/enthesitis trouble spots as they start to hamper my work. It's costing me about £200 per go. Luckily I've only had to have 2 so far, but as I said above I'm worried that I could be setting up for some more finger problems right now. The steroid injections are fantastic. They take me from about 30% use of finger to being 90% pain free in a matter of a few days. They are an instant cure that in theory can keep me working. They should be available on the NHS but their laid back approach to diagnosis means I can't get them. In fact, if I hadn't sought any private treatment by this stage then I would have put myself at serious risk of doing permanent damage to either the nerves or joints in my fingers.

I've started swimming to see if building up a bit of fitness and muscle strength might help with the symptoms. All it seems to be doing at the moment is aggravating things. I had to cut short my last swimming session because I couldn't do breast stroke due to my hip adductors being sore and I couldn't swim front crawl because my left shoulder was getting more painful with each length.

I've got about 10 days worth of work coming in the next couple of weeks. It's a real test to see whether my fingers are going to be up to more serious work. The slightly galling thing is that the money that I'm earning for the work will barely cover the cost of the treatment that I've had up to this point.