Testimonials

Rheumatoid arthritis (Male/ 40's)

Symptoms before treatment

This patient had a disease of the joints called rheumatism and pain in hand. He was a dentist and 48 years old.

A few years after he opened his own clinic, he was diagnosed with joint rheumatism. Since then, he continued taking a medicine called Rheumatrex (Methotrexate), but the pain in left joint fingers especially middle finger got worse and he felt a difficulty working on his job.

Methotrexate alone was not enough to cure, and he used steroids for a while but the pain in his middle finger did not get better, so he stopped using them.

During the work, he had to apply a lot of force to his middle finger when holding dental instruments. One day he felt a severe pain and could not hold the instrument, so he hurriedly got a part-time doctor to take care of his patient instead. He was feeling ashamed of himself not being able to practice on his own.

To be able to see patients on his own, he started taking a biologic drug called Actemra. However, after the 4th medications, he found that he had a pneumonia and needed to be hospitalized for 3 weeks. Of course, he had to stop using Actemra, and other biologic medications were also considered to hurt his body.

He was about to give up that he was unable to treat his patients anymore, he found our seminar and decided to see one of our doctors.

Findings from our doctor

At first visit, we found by echo that the back side of metacarpophalangeal joint of middle finger obviously had strong blood flow signal. We had a catheterization treatment and an artery injection, so two different treatments in total for him. The below image of his hand was taken in the catheterization treatment. The blue arrows indicate the problem blood vessels in his hand.

After the treatment

After the treatment, I had the most improvement in pain that I have ever experienced. One month after I finished the arterial injection treatment, I tried to hold the dental instrument. Without feeling any pain, I could hold it. After a while, I confirmed that I felt no pain even if I used my fingers, so I was able to go back to my work. My staff members were surprised.

I still feel a little pain in my others joint sometimes but am glad that the pain in hand was improved and could go back to my work.

In case of joint rheumatism, it is often seen that the patient needs to take some medicines with strong side-effects or feel pain even though their inflammation level is low enough. In such cases, we recommend the catheterization treatment or arterial injection as an additional treatment. If you have such symptoms, please consider this as one of your choices.