hiya kasia! have you gotten a treatment or anything since your diagnosis? sending love and strength, lovely 💗💗

sorry for only seeing this now D: SO lmao so things have got more complicated since then my friend

Really starting to wonder how long it's gonna be before I can see a rheumatologist now. Like. On paper I was only supposed to be on the waitlist for "up to 365 days", but in reality, way too many fucking people need to go to the rheumatology clinic. I was told by a different gp that the rheumatology waitlists are notoriously very long and wasn't surprised when I told him I had already been waiting a year. It's now been almost 14 months ! I love the public healthcare system /s. But at least it's free I suppose :/

Now Because it has now been over 365 days, I was asked if 1. I still wanted to be on the waitlist, and 2. If I wanted to be put on a separate list for basically "if someone else cancels an appointment I can come and snatch theirs". So I am now on That list. But I have a feeling that if waiting on this list for over a year wasn't surprising to my doctor... a lot of people are probably on that list. Augh.

Extra 2/3 paragraphs below the cut that aren't necessary to read but go a bit more into detail

How long will it be until I have a clue what is wrong with me and it doesn't feel like it's all just in my head. Because the blood tests came back negative for any of the usual indicators of rheumatoid arthritis, but that doesn't necessarily rule it out completely. But it could possibly be other things too.

I just found out a few months ago that my dad has ankylosing spondylitis so that's likely at least some of my problem, as I share the problems that he has with that in the same areas. And he said his problems with it started around the time that mine did (12 - 14). Though almost certainly not exclusively my problems because this doesn't come with hand pain afaik, and he only has minor hand pain. Whereas my hand pain is I'd say slightly more significant than my neck/shoulder pain. Separately from that, my dad has a generic "arthritis" diagnosis as well, but it seems to present mostly differently from whatever I have going on so.

(To clarify, bc it was misinterpreted by a gp when I was 15 or 16. The neck/shoulder pain is in the joints where the neck joins the shoulders + where the shoulders join the arms. Same as my dad. This isn't just "computer usage" pain, although I have that to a minor extent too.)