Thread by @ClaireBerlinski

For those of you waiting breathlessly for updates about that weird pain in Claire's knee--and I know you are legion--I have finally seen a rheumatologist. (You may recall I fired Rheumatologist 1 for tardiness. But Rheumatologist 2--hereinafter R2--was only 20 minutes late.

https://twitter.com/ClaireBerlinski/status/1364893042507984896

Clearly, the rheumatological world trembled upon hearing of R1's condign but terrifying punishment.)

Anyway, @fredcole, seems you were right. R2 says the various pains would seem to be unrelated.

He's sent me off for x-rays--many of them--to confirm this.

(These happen at a separate clinic.)

He needs to see them before he can make a formal diagnosis.

But from the physical exam and the sonogram, R2 strongly believes:

1. The hip pain is some kind of L5S1 thing. Probably the best treatment is nothing. (It may be connected to working from my sofa for an entire year.)

2. The ankle pain has nothing to do with my joints at all. It's just tendonitis. He prescribed the local version of Voltaren gel, physical therapy, and orthotic insoles. I have to see a podiatrist for those.

A podiatrist. The humiliation.

Ladies, I'm sure you know the problem with seeing a podiatrist during a pandemic.

Gentlemen: Don't ask.

As for the right knee, read on, because it gets exciting:

He's betting on osteoarthritis. And if he's right, that means I was right, too, which means diagnosing yourself on the Internet works just fine and you shouldn't listen to those scolds who tell you not to do it.

But *not* rheumatoid arthritis, thankfully. @StephenFarris13

Just the "getting older sucks" kind of arthritis.

The Baker's cyst was, in R2's judgment, impressively "volumineux." He aspirated it.

My readers will be ravished to learn it contained 35 ml of viscous, yellow fluid. Enough to fill a Coke can.

Needless to say, R2 was a good-looking young man. This *always* happens to me when I have to undergo a particularly disgusting medical procedure.

Don't even ask about the surgeon who met me via my benign cystic teratoma.

(And if you don't know what that is, don't look it up before lunch. Or lovemaking.)

Anyway, back to the knee. Having aspirated four or five vials of ocherous snot from the back of my knee, R2 gave me a cortisone injection and told me to come back after I've had the X-rays.

As he wrote in his summary of the clinical exam, apart from the L5S1 pain, the tendonitis, and the snot galore behind my knee, "Reste RAS." Roughly, "The rest looked fine."

So my right knee now looks like a human knee should. (Before, it looked like it was about to give birth.)

I'm *very* relieved he didn't think I had rheumatoid arthritis.

And as always, it's not lupus.

So I pronounce myself satisfied with R2. But I'll have to wait for the official diagnosis.

And we'll see if he's on time for our second appointment-- hereinafter, R2D2.