Elbow Injection?

Mia has been complaining that her elbow hurts. So, I paged the doctor on call - Dr. Natter (he works with Dr. Lopez). He thinks she needs to have it drained and injected (same procedure as her knee). Which means...

I am steroid hunting, again.

This time, the doc told me to contact the FDA directly and see where I can get it. He said since it takes so long to get it that I should start looking now since that is the direction she is heading. Great. Let the hunt begin.

He also mentioned that it sounds like to him that Mia has psoriatic arthritis (????) and told us to mention this to Dr. Lopez. Interesting. So, we'll mention it to her doc and see what he says. Dr. Natter told me that they tend to be a bit more aggressive with meds if it is psoriatic arthritis, meaning they would definitely do the elbow draining and injection and start her on immediately start her on methotrexate.

Our appointment with Dr. Lopez is on May 26 and he will be the one to ultimately decide if Mia need to have the elbow procedure done. If she does, the pediatric orthopedic department will do the procedure - not rheumatology.

In other news, Mia's stomach has really been hurting from the ibuprofen. The doctor recommended I take her off of the ibuprofen for now until her stomach calms down. Great...and what about her elbow then?? Take her off and no stomach pain, but elbow and possible knee pain. Or leave her on it and no joint pain, but continued stomach pain. UGH! I didn't agree with him. I don't want to take any chances here. Can you blame me?? So, he wrote me a prescrip for Zantac. She was on Zantac last July when she was experiencing the same stomach/G.I. issues. It seemed to work well and she had less irritation and stomach cramping when she took the two together. So, we'll try that for now and see what Dr. Lopez has to say next Tuesday. For now, we have been wrapping her arm with an ace bandage for about 30 mins. several times throughout the day. She said it feels better when it is wrapped.

Up on deck for this week:
PT - Monday and Thursday.