Welcome! Come here to vent, share and learn. We do get it, and if we think you’re having a pity party we’ll tell you to give your head a shake. We’re pretty focused on evidence-based treatments here, and we don’t go in for a whole lot of drama, but we are a pretty sympathetic bunch on the whole. We know you have a million questions. This section is to help you answer a few. Please don’t hesitate to ask your questions though. These are short articles written by experienced PsA patients on range of topics for the newly diagnosed or those in process of being diagnosed. They are not highly technical, we leave that to others nor are they intended to be all-inclusive. We will be adding more so please come back often.
Well, I guess this posting and joining all of you is my second step towards acccepting the reality of having what I have never had before…a disease! After 59 years of a very active life of outdoor sports, horse riding, snowmobiles and living hard and healthy, this was not in my plans. My diagnosis came after about 5 years of knowing something was “off”. I would often tell my wife, “I think I have some sort of wierd connective tissue thing happening”. Because I was on constant use of Celebrex for 3 serious disc herniations, I think some of the PsA was masked. In the last year I did two prednisone blitzes for suspected PMR which made feel absolutely fanstasic…but once off, I dove into deep fatigue and pain points that I had never had before nor had I any sort of past injury at those points. My first Rheumatologist went through all the motions of blood tests and hand motion diagnosis and dismissed me. Having suffered repeated disc problems and kidney stones made me quite aware of different pain levels etc. While this is nothing like a kidney stone in intensity, the accumulative all over the place pain is very gripping and real. I finally got in with a new, just out of school Rheumatologist…so far, she is great. Inexperienced but also un-jaded or hardened from years of patients. I was prescribed MTX on an increasing dose for the next 3 months. Being in denial and a person who can usually fix almost anything, I took a whole month of painfully staring at the box of MTX before I decided that I just couldn’t tough it out anymore. Some of it was just male pride and a huge part, the typical fear of every side affect on the internet hitting me upon taking my first 10 mg of MTX. After my second dose, I still really don’t feel anything…no better, no worse and all my hair didn’t fall out! What? Who makes a pill that takes 4-6 months to start to MAYBE work? Winnipeg potholes don’t even take that long to fix! My current “go to” to deal with it all is 1000mg Tylenol with a cup of coffee. Call me crazy but it absolutely boosts my energy and cuts the pain in half. (I have cut out 80% of caffein from my diet a number of years ago)
Anyways, I’m in with both feet and have accepted with great reluctance, I have PsA. Rats.
I have read so many of the postings on this site and for the most part, I have come away encouraged. The discussions are very real and I can’t tell you how many times I have said, “That’s just like me!” after stumbling across some PsA “inner body experience” shared by someone else. Sorry…too long already. But thank you to those who monitor and maintain this wealth of kind information! Peace.