Well, I had it. I was NOT impressed with the Dr. I guess, with him being just out of residency, I was hoping he'd be more 'cutting edge.' When we got to talking about losing some weight, he simply said to 'reduce portion size and exercise.' He asked me if my children were heavy!! I was actually off-put by that question, as if I'm in such bad shape that I certainly must be making my children fat, too. I don't have 100 pounds to lose, I have 20-30 pounds to lose. I was probably just being over-sensitive, I'm sure.

They drew some bloodwork, which I'll be happy to see the results of. Standard CBC, lipid profile, chemistry, renal, hepatic and thyroid function.

I've had a terrible cough the last 2-1/2 weeks. Allergies, he said. He said Northern Virginia is a hotbed of allergies. I fiigured that's what it was, since we left the area for the weekend and it went away, then came back as soon as we returned. Great...now I'll probably have to take antihistamines chronically. He prescribed Allegra-D, but I don't want to take the psuedoephedrine every day (the "D" in Allegra-D) since I don't have nasal congestion, so I'm just gonna take OTC Claritin (loratidine) for now.

The biggest shocker of the appt was, just as he was walking out the door, I said, "Oh yeah, what do you make of this?" And I showed him my red, swollen joints on my right hand (outer part of the middle joint of middle and pinky fingers). He said I needed to come back and be tested for rhumatoid arthritis! You could have knocked me other with a feather. I stammered something about osteoarthritis and how I had used my right hand so extensively in my previous career, and he shook his head. He said a 40 year old should not have nodules on her hands, regardless. So I'm going back tomorrow for that appt. (He's new in the practice, so it's easy to get an appt with him.) I don't have to tell you I'm very nervous about this. These joints just happened this summer. The pinky in June and the middle finger about 2 weeks ago. The are a little sore to the touch, but only very slightly stiff. I had immediately looked up RA on the internet and dismissed it, b/c it said that usually the symptoms appear bilaterally (on both hands, that is.).