With my whole body seeming to be flaring up all over the place at the moment I have gone back to my private Rheumatologist to try the next level of treatment. It turns out that this is a shot of steroids into the buttock. Whereas my three previous injections have been into specific tendons to quench the dactylitis at the time, this is a much more general shot that should hopefully relieve symptoms all round my body, for approximately 6 weeks.
As with many of the other treatments that I've been having, this also has good diagnostic value. Many of my symptoms are quite subjective. I'm in pain, and the pain can be caused by doing specific things, but actually measuring any level of inflammation is quite hard. If I respond well to the steroid shot then they should be able to say a lot more confidently that my symptoms are being caused by inflammation, thus tying in with the original diagnosis.
Right now though, I'm stiff all over. I have to find a comfortable position to sit in and when I get up there's a few paces of hobbling until my body gets used to moving again. Last night was a real struggle to play the guitar. I'm pretty confident that if I had a show tonight then I wouldn't be able to make it all the way through it, at least not well. My back is also getting increasingly stiff. I suspect the 2 hour drive each way to work this past week hasn't helped me a lot.
Anyway, I'm off to try and enjoy some Chinese New Year this weekend hopefully with my girlfriend. If there's one thing guaranteed to take my mind off the pain it's spending a bit of time with her.
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