Undiagnosed psoriatic arthritis is high in patients with psoriasis

[Kat]

Hmm, I like my rheumatologist and I think he's been quite informative.  

Just saying......

Interesting. In what sense is he informative? Something on the diagnostics of Psoriatic Arthritis?

He was very informative on treatments for psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis (and thanks to this forum, I already had heard of the treatments)

He explained the differences in arthritis (osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, and psoriatic arthritis mostly) in terms simple enough for me to understand.  

Also, when I first went to him I thought I was being tested for psoriatic arthritis (a few years back now) but the test were xrays and blood test.  It was explained to me that there is no test for psoriatic arthritis, that the diagnosis comes from the patient's symptoms and it not always easy to diagnose, especially in the early stages.  

I can't remember every word from each visit.  I guess there is always concern that people with psoriasis can develop psoriatic arthritis so I see him at least once per year.  This last visit he recommended cosentyx over tremfya for me (my dermatologist recommended those two for me to switch to over stelara).  He admitted that he had more knowledge (and results) from cosentyx as they recommend it for psoriatic arthritis, he felt that tremfya more dealt with the psoriasis only and due to me having arthritis (osteo) and also starting to show some arthritis beginning in hands and ankles, that it would be best in his opinion to start on something that works for psoriatic arthritis just in case. (The stiffness in my ankles is a bit of a concern)

We also had an open (and honest I think) discussion last year on why insurance requires you to go through certain medicines first.  We were mostly discussing MTX at the time.  Basically insurance companies are cheap and usually want all the older and cheaper drugs tried out first, no brainer really but our insurance is different than what most of you deal with, even though similar in how they want doctors to prescribe meds.  That's the short version anyway.    

In my case my dermatologist deals ONLY with the skin.  I've been to two and neither of them mentioned psoriatic arthritis to me at all.

Plus, I like him