Asking this question to see what others think.
I strained my low back several weeks ago. Now, the PSA is hitting my low back and my hips bad. I can remember straining a knee about a year ago and wonder then if the PSA attacked the injuried and inflamed site. The pain in my back now is getting to be intense.
What have others seen?
Have intense low back pain too, read somewhere it is one of possible sites for the disease. Also have pain and inflammation off and on in knees and upper arch of one foot. Due partly to lying down for two months have put on some weight again, which I think is not beneficial for inflammation, maybe fasting could abate issues.
Stress from an injury or illness can cause a flare for me. I think it’s the stress anyway. The areas that flare are not necessarily the area that was injured.
Certainly the ‘asault’ of the injury can fire up your immune system again as in PsA. There’s no doubt in my mind that the relatively minor assault of bunion correction surgery ignited my PsA in the first place. I think that it depends on the injury you’ve sustained as to whether PsA then attacks it. Mostly though in my experience it just goes rampant from the ‘assault’ in the first place with little coherency as to what next gets inflamed and painful. PsA is never as logical as we like to think it might be in doing a straightforward inflammation of an injured place scenario either. Often it can do the opposite too don’t forget and calm down if your injury is ‘big enough’ to shut it up for a while.
Don’t forget PsA loves backs and hips too. Just anyway. That was one of the first major PsA issues for me after the initial flaring of it. I can remember thinking if I could just put a huge strap around my hips/pelvis and lower back I might get some relief. It was like all the tendons and ligaments were constantly pulling my back and pelvis apart quite honestly. Sob inducing pain levels at times.
I’m fairly confident that most of my joints damaged by PSA are ones that I had previously injured, would put money on it!
Childhood / Young Adult injuries all got damaged when I first had PSA and subsequent injuries also seem to have a habit of doing the same.
It present I have ghastly pain from a prolapsed disc in my neck, top of my spine. I’m waiting for my MRI appt. Ive somehow done this injury or maybe just wear and tear or my PsA has caused it, I don’t know. I’ve been like this since early Dec and my PsA has been attacking my shoulder joints, elbows and hands. I’ve on gabapentin now and its eased the pain slightly. I’ve taken a wheelbarrow full of codeine and paracetamol since Dec. Its dreadful!
I certainly think so!
I broke my wrist in December and had surgery on it in January and wow the flare has been painful and long lasting.
I’m thinking trauma probably can trigger a flare. I know that if I even slightly injure a fingernail or even the finger tip it often sets off the psoriasis under the nails and it gets really ugly. Sometimes the entire nail will end up coming off. Oi vey! The knee that I injured 40 years ago is the one that PsA has mostly targeted.
I don’t know what set off a huge flare last year but it lasted for 8 of the longest months of my life. Possibly sitting in a plane for two days traveling to see my mother who was not long for this world. Not exactly trauma but there was a certain amount of stress involved. But I’m glad we got to see her before she died. And since we were in lockdown with doctors seeing ONLY EMERGENCIES shortly after we got back home I just had to tough it out. When I finally got in to the orthopedist that knee had degenerated quite a bit since he last saw it. I’m scheduled Tuesday for a total knee replacement. Fortunately he’s keeping the possibility of the surgical trauma triggering a flare and (as much as I don’t like them) will keep steroids ‘in his back pocket’ in the event.
What a strange thing this PsA is!
There has been a lot of research on this starting back to a dermy in 1800s known as Koebner phenomenon. He was thought of as crazy because he mainly experimented on himself but there is newer research based on his theories many specific to psoriasis. If you search around the site you can find some old discussions on it in which tlamb explains it much better than I could.
I know, and was told, that three major surgeries in 18 months triggered mine. I agree that anything that I ever injured now is an easy target for the PSA. I have one knee that was operated on three times in my life and it now hurts constantly.
I strained my back lifting something about three weeks ago and that seemed to have settled down. Then suddenly it started hurting again. It was my low back and now my hips are hurting from the PSA. It just seems that if I tweak a joint now, the PSA takes advantage of it!
Why does that surprise you though @tamac given how our insane immune systems operate? Sometimes the opposite happens though and PsA sort of gets better given you’ve tweaked a joint. Keobner’s and Reverse Keobner’s syndrome.
Oh man! Forward syndromes, reverse syndromes…no wonder I don’t know if I’m comin’ or goin’!!
I hope there is a vaccine for knackered syndrome!
I was told that 80% of the worst injuries happen within 2 km of home…now we have to move!
@tamac I hope you soon find some relief from the constant return of your PsA complications.