Well I was just wondering because I was just recently diagnosed with RA.  My mom was researching some info about the disease and said she saw where one of the side effects of the Rhogam shot was Rheumatoid arthritis.  I received the Rhogam shot when I was pregnant with my daughter and a year later I am diagnosed with RA.  RA does not run in my family and I am just astounded as to why all the sudden I started having symptoms of RA.  One of my co-workers whom also has RA also received the Rhogam shot.  I was just wondering how many females out there that has RA received the shot.

I received 2 - once when a pregnancy was terminated, and once after I had my daughter...I've never heard of that connection and RA does run in my family...I didn't get diagnosed with RA until my daughter was 20 years old.  But - that will  bear looking into, it's supposed to prevent antibodies from forming to the baby's blood so I supposed it has to do something related to the immune system.  Never thought about it.  Could you ask your mother where she read that?

I have found some info on this but not much.  I had my last shot about 19 years ago.  I wounder if it would take that long or if it would happen much sooner. I do know that as I have had to look at things a little closer I know I have a many times where I was stiff or my hands hurt but it did not last long and I never thought about it until now.  I wounder if I could have had RA then and it just not have been so bad, I don't know, I will keep looking. I still have alot of ???'s

My mother was just researching the disease and not even looking for anything to do with the Rhogam shot.  She knew I had the shot when I was pregnant so when she seen one article about the shot being related to Rheumatoid arthritis she started reading about that.  I just typed in Rheumatoid arthritis and Rhogam shot and you should be able to see some articles/info on it. I can't say that the shot is responsible for me getting RA but like you said it has to do with the antibodies in your system.  It is also interesting that the shot is made by combining antibodies from many people into one shot.

Also, my co-worker that has RA is now in her 60s and she said she got the shot forty years ago when it first came out.  She had her two kids in her late 20s and was diagnosed with RA at 36.  She is a nurse so I'm sure when she started having symptoms she looked into it and went to the doctor.  I can imagine that some people go awhile with mild symptoms and not even know they have it.??

I think that's true - looking back I certainly had symptoms, I was in the doctor's office about every 2 weeks during the 2 years before, with tendonitis in various places, sore ankles, sore wrists/hands/neck/jaw, you name it!  He kept thinking" she's too young for this" ... Well, I look about 10 years younger than I am, but I feel about 10 years older!

Both my grandmother and aunt and cousin, all got the RA in their 50s and it gets worse in the 60s (not looking forward to that, however, they didn't have all the good meds that are now available then, plus I know how to minimize my symptoms with diet, etc.  Plus I have a mostly low-stress job (which has been boring at times, but I have tried to higher stress on-my-own/authority kinds of jobs (teaching, etc) and found it was just too much .... long before I had RA!  I've got the brains but not the body, I guess!  :-)   

    By the way - in my experience, nurses are the LAST people to go to the doctor!  My cousin had bad symptoms (vaginal bleeding) for a year before she decided to find out that she had cancer.  She was fortunate to survive with a hysterectomy/I think it was cervical or uterine cancer.  More recently, she's come down with lymphoma in her gut.  Had surgery for blockage, had post surgical infections, and is now starting chemo a year later ...   and doesn't really want to talk about it, even with family. 

    There is a very long-term Nurse's Health Study where if they wanted to, they could check the correlation of Rhogam, but I don't know if anyone has thought of that.  I don't think it had anything to do with mine, but it would be interesting if someone could actually check if there's a correlation.   Do you know that there's a higher risk of breast cancer if someone works night shift?  It throws the body out of whack and the person has less benefit of melatonin production at night (darkness vs. artificial light) and melatonin helps prevent cancer.  On the other hand, if you take too much (some people take supplements in order to sleep), that can  be bad too.  I looked at the box once when I was thinking about it, and it said specifically, don't take if you have autoimmune problems. 

That's crazy! (the night shift and melatonin production) I believe it though.  It seems like everything has an effect on a person in some way.  I don't know that the Rhogam shot has to do with me being diagnosed with RA but I just turned 28 and have been healthy up until 5-6 months ago.  My daughter is 15 months old and I received the shot when I was pregnant and right after I had her.  Nobody else on either side of my family has/had it and it seems like my symptoms came on all the sudden.  I was just curious to see if anyone else that has RA received the shot. 

Ellen,

I have been researching diets that help people diagnosed with RA.  What kind of foods do you eat that you have found helpful?

MOre fruits & veggies.  Less meat.  Green peppers make my hands hurt.  Red meat is just bad all around, mood, energy goes negative.  I love fish, always have. I assume because fish oil is good for you that the fish (esp. salmon & tuna they say) are good as well, because of the omega-3s.  Tomatoes, though they have some good stuff for some people, caused me problems even before RA - more acid, more reflux.  However, i find I can have the occasional raw tomato in a salad, but avoid the cooked thick tomato sauce, that's bad news for me.  I seem to need a lot more fiber than I used, as well.  Oatmeal has lowered the cholesterol count for both my husband and I, and also has a lot of fiber.  Turmeric is supposed to be esp. antiinflammatory, I'm just starting to use it.  Some people love it, I'm not thrilled about it  but have been able to put it on cereal - yeah, I know, weird.  The golden color distracts me from the taste, I think! 

   But Believe me, I'm not the perfect eater - I eat junk food too and unless I keep it to a minimum, it will bother my stomach.

   Doctor just gave me an order to 2 different kinds of liver scans - but he's never found anything, despite my liver enzyme tests going up and down. Not sure I want to bother with any more tests, but ... who wants to take a chance?  So, as long as it's not a biopsy (invasive, probably have to skip an Enbrel shot to do it), maybe I'll do one at a time...

    Oh I forgot. Green tea - doesn't tend to  bother my sinuses as much as black tea (I've been drinking tea since my teens but went off caffeine for a long time because it made my moods go up and down.  Now, I'm mostly down with out it, so I've succumbed - but at least there is stuff in green tea which is anti-inflammatory andgood for you.  IOt is available decaffeinated, but I need the little boost that one cup a day brings.  Except that - the caffeine eventually makes the reflux worse.  Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose!  But really, there's always another day, keep in mind that if one thing doesn't work, there really is something else you can do - it may be exercise, meditation, journaling (& sounding off when you need to, either in print, or on this site!)

Gluten Free!

I have had two shots, one with each child since my blood type is A-.  I was diagnosed with RA in 2/09.  I now realize I have had symptoms for over 3 years and have been misdiagnosed until now.  I am curious where this info was found, I am definately going to research this now.

Ellen, Thank you for the diet information.  That is pretty much what I found when I researched the kind of foods to eat and not to eat.

Mom in Midwest, If you just google Rhuematoid arthritis and Rhogam shot the information about the correlation between the two should come up. 

Wow, that is an interesting theory!  I had one when I was pregnant with my daughter and one right after she was born.  I had the most painful pregnancy - extremely painful joints, carpal tunnel, etc.  This is when my RA symptoms began - I thought it was just the pregnancy, but it never went away.  I had the shots again with my son and went to the Rheumy for the first time and was offered MTX when he was less than a year old (I said no b/c I was nursing).  I didn't feel like he gave me a formal dx back then.  I was officially dx'd early this year.  Anyway, I had precursors to the RA before my pregnancies, but then again, I have multiple autoimmune issues.  I'll have to look into that one more.

Wow! Finally maybe an answer to why i was diagnosed with RA as well. Pretty much the exact same situation as you. Hopefully you are not taking one of those awful "commercial" drugs to treat your symptoms.