Deep heat flushes in my elbows and wrists all started about six or seven years ago. I've spent the last five years assuming this is part of my RA/ connective tissue disease but my rheumatologist says I don't have one now. So it's been raging all day in my left arm and my mouth up to my left eye is numb and my feet feel like they've been in the freezer for many hours.

I was up last night with the worst peripheral nerve pain I've had in ages in legs and arms - hands most severely. So if this isn't my RA and the GP dismissed my worry that it might be a stroke - then what on earth is going on? Feet aside I feel as if I've been dunked in a scorching hot bath and am now glowing from within? Any ideas. My friend asked me if I might have Fibromyalgia just now but this has never been mentioned. I wouldn't call it pain but I'm also terribly dizzy and spaced out as if a bit drunk?

And about Immunoglobulin A. I was tested for this a few years ago in relation to Ceoliacs and found the private lab result yesterday saying it was slightly raised above normal range (0.70-4.00) at 4.01. It was one g/l under the normal range in September so just negative. Does anyone know what this might mean at all? I looked online but could only find Ceoliacs and allergies. Not sure if it's relevant in isolation and only slightly raised or not. Looking for things that the specialists might have overlooked - probably clutching at straws but thought I'd ask.

It sounds like a bad flare-up. Keeping a journal is a tool to help keep them from recurring. Remember if you ate anything different yesterday. Remember if you went walking in the snow, exposed your hands to a toxin, took a medication that was not daily(Methrotrexate). I hope that things quiet down for you quickly, Ken in Texas.

Thanks Ken, it has eased up a lot so I'm thinking it was just a stress related flare - we have had a disastrous few weeks with just having bought a house that has major problems - now having to look for rented accommodation for the next six months. I guess this would make anyone with autoimmunity flare. Otherwise everything pretty much normal diet and environment the same. So back to the usual tingle, cold numbness and dizziness now - and very thankful for it!

Mat

I'm not sure you saw the post I made a couple days ago to your other thread about doctors not searching harder. But I brought up the vascular side of this again...which I think needs to be looked at, after hearing more about your symptoms. Has anyone done any investigation into this yet?

Sorry i never saw your post on my previous thread. I will look. I don't seem to receive notifications and it's hard to log in from my iPad.

Sorry to sound ignorant but when you say vascular do you mean some sort of Vasculitis or vascular as in blood flow/ veins? I chose my new rheumatologist because he had a special interest in Vasculitus and he's been thorough where investigations have been concerned. The only outstanding test he's waiting to get back is for Behcets and he thinks I did have a vascular rash at one stage. But my cryoglobulins were normal in my CSF a year ago so unless the rash returns or I get a positive for Behcets he doesn't think I have any form of Vasculitus now.

Both my parents died suddenly from heart failure due to atherosclerosis - both at 73. Both had the signs of vascular dementia - which killed my grandfather and my uncle too, in the run up to their deaths. Following a couple of "functional" (a disparaging and mysoginist term I've been told!) left side hemiparesis episodes last year I was given a carotid duplex last August and was found to have mildly diseased carotid arteries. I believe this is early atherosclerosis. My BP keeps going up and up so now on two BP meds. This all concerns me a lot but my doctors seem not to be concerned outwith their own specialist areas and my heart is okay from ECGs despite arrhythmia from ectopic beats.

Sorry Enbloc probably too much of a reply but I don't have trouble with my varicose veins and haven't had any kind of thrombosis to date. Mat X