Rheumatoid arthritis and breast cancer

Hi and welcome to the forum.  I don't have rheumatoid arthritis so can't answer your question but by replying to you it will bump your post back up to the top where someone who can might be on the forum this time and see it.

I hope you are not struggling too much with having to deal with both.

Here awake with pain in back diagnosed RA from mris to check for mets the pain was so bad in my hands and feet I did have pain on and off since 22 but it has just gotten vicious .had tchp chemo last year and had flare up now on kadcyla and it has spread so they giving me steroids couple times a week so see how it goes. I was in tears nearly trying to help with homework r prepping dinner and back always sore and stiff. What annoyed me is it took docs guts of two years for penny to drop ..they saw my bloods often enough but missed the slightly raised esr levels .I only had slightly raised bloods when breast cancer spread to neck and all my nodes had it tchp shrank tumour down to 3.8 but nodes were still untouched and so spread to neck but thankfully after boost radiotherapy and kadcyla have clear mris just this awful RA be very interested how you manage drugs etc as mine is advanced enough but treatment should help I thought all these years had osteoarthritis I just turned 50 and still have 11 yr old and 8 ye old at home 

Hi Nimsay, has part of this discussion disappeared from the site? I thought we’d chatted a bit about it but it appears to be gone now? I was on methotrexate but they stopped it all when I was on chemo as that does the same job. It was fine I didn’t have any flare ups during treatment, around 6 weeks of chemo stopping it came back and I’m currently managing with painkillers until my wounds are healed enough to get back on the methotrexate xx

Hi Nimsay, I too have both & Lymphedema in right breast from Radiotherapy. Dr thinks the Pericarditis could also be caused by treatment. I should be taking Exemerstane but too scared as already chest pain & shortness of breathe, I'm just scared. Had PETSCAN & now waiting for results as another lump found during chest x-rays. Another ECG on Monday. Don't want to sound ungrateful, but I'm so tired of tests, treatments & now the pain from Pericarditis, it was chronic a few weeks ago, thought I was having a heart attack. It had gone & now back again this week, wondering if SCAN triggered it off again. Pain not as intense, but I am dosing myself up with painkillers. Sleeping sitting up is not easy, too painful laying down. I'm so relieved to be able to chat to others dealing with this chronic condition. The fatigue is crazy at times. My family still not understand why I'm always off to bed at 9, working full time, busy family life, I'm not sleeping great, so probably crash every few days. We will find our way through this journey & come out the other end. Big hugs xx