The Latest

For those of you following along at home, here's a brief update after my appointment with the gastroenterologist on Friday:

Basically I don't have any more answers. I had been hoping that she would look at my info and say "it's no problem, we don't have to worry about it," but that's not exactly what happened. It's still quite likely it's not a big deal (perhaps Gilbert's Syndrome, which is basically a benign genetic condition where your liver doesn't properly process bilirubin), but we need to do some further testing to rule out other causes. My increasing nausea, low platelets, and autoimmune stuff raise some red flags, I guess. So, I'm in for an abdominal ultrasound next Thursday morning, as well as more blood work for all sorts of weird things (anti-mitochondrial antibodies? my knowledge of the human body is expanding every day!).

On the upside, my elevated levels are primarily indirect (unconjugated) bilirubin, which makes it unlikely that this has anything to do with medication. So, that's good. Also, apparently you don't start turning yellow until your bilirubin is consistently above 3.0. My last test was 2.9, so we'll see. :)

I do think going back on the Cimzia has helped my pain somewhat. It hasn't been quite as bad the last week.

Also, it's warm and sunny today! I'm going to attempt a bike ride with my very eager son.