Worth seeing a rheumatologist privately?

[Sorehand]

For the last few months I’ve had increasingly worse muscle and joint aches and pains.

It’s beginning to affect my day to day life. My GP has referred me to rheumatology- my appointment is in January.
Rheumatology decided it was routine after seeing my blood results and hand/feet x-rays.
My RF and CK are raised but ESR and Se anti-CCP antibody are normal.

Can I assume that as they have decided it’s not urgent there’s nothing to be done now and paying private will be wasteful. Or could I actually get help of seen sooner?

Was anything abnormal identified in the x-ray report?

My dad has a rheumatological condition which was only diagnosed after 2 months of decreasing mobility to the point where he was disabled. Before diagnosis, he'd spent 3 weeks in hospital and was discharged with no diagnosis and no follow up. Only through the good fortune of my knowing a doctor at a different hospital did we manage to get him in there - and even then he was seen by general surgery, trauma orthopaedics, and other disciplines, before he saw a rheumatologist who diagnosed his condition immediately.

My understanding is that many rheumatological conditions can be difficult to diagnose. I would absolutely pay to see a specialist if you can afford to. It's a long time to wait otherwise and your condition may worsen in that time.

That’s a long wait. It can be slow to diagnose some rheumatological conditions but sometimes it is obvious. Raised RF and ESR would concern me a bit. You could have a one off consultation with a private rheumatologist but they won’t do much more than blood tests and maybe ultrasound on painful joints. Quite a bit of the diagnosis will go on physical examination looking for swollen and painful joints and also on patient’s experience of pain and difficulty using various joints. However, you would get a 8 month head start on the meds if you are diagnosed with something. I’d consider it in your position.

My GP referred me last week and was asked for X-rays almost immediately which I did.
I haven’t had any results back but they are available for the hospital to view on the system. I can only assume there’s nothing of concern.

I do however know there is a cyst on one of my wrist bone which was found in an x-ray after I fell a couple of weeks ago. I saw an orthopaedic surgeon about that yesterday who is referring me for an MRI, the waiting list is many months long. I asked him about the painful joints and muscles but it’s for the rheumatologist to deal with not him.

With your blood tests results I would definitely pay to go private. I have a rare autoimmune disease that in the initial stages didn’t really show much blood test wise, that came later, and on the basis of those results, I waited months before I was seen by Rheumatology, by which stage things had progressed and it certainly made things worse.

I booked an appointment to see a rheumatologist, 6 week wait!

Can you put your name down for a cancellation appointment?