Fractured cheekbone

General Support
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So, I don’t know if i told you all, but I passed out February 27 and landed on my face. Split my lips, bruised my jaw and my cheekbone hurt. The lips healed in a week. The jaw took a few weeks and went through several stages of color changes in healing. However, my cheekbone has not healed. Saw Dr yesterday and she felt it and felt the “hard knob” under the swelling. I didn’t want to xray my face so I asked what the treatment would be if it was fractured. She said facial fractures require surgery. Uh oh! Out of the question for many reasons. So PsA, steroids and post-surgical menopause taking estrogen = easily breakable bones and slow healing. She said I have two months to show improvement and then I need to move on to consulting a surgeon :frowning: I hate this!

Also, I have to take 10 days of amoxicillin due to an ingrown hair. GRR. I really don’t like antibiotics because they wreak havoc on my microbiota. I’ve worked really hard to get them healthy and now I’m having all sorts of antibiotic related symptoms. I’ve got 6 strains of probiotics and I’m a vegetarian so I already am maxed on prebiotics. Not sure what else to do.

I’m probably overreacting but the divorce and everything else going on is just adding up. I’ve only got so much energy to spread around and it’s running out. Average 4 to 5 hours sleep per night since january. I wake up many times and in the morning my back hurts so much I have to get up whether i’m done sleeping or not. I have an adjustable bed and do my best to stretch it out in the morning, but it’s painful, still!

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Hello there.

I hear you, there’s a lot going on and you don’t know which way to turn.

But sometimes it’s a case of ‘needs must’. Go easy on yourself, that’s the best I can come up with, but it would be my approach. You do not want to take antibiotics, yet currently you are told - I guess this comes from doctors(?) - that you need them.

Seems to me that you have set the bar pretty high in terms of looking after yourself. Taking antibiotics and worrying about the possibility of surgery probably makes you feel as if you’ve failed. You have not failed. I think this may be one of those times when you need to muddle through, as so many of us do. Do not panic about the antibiotics or indeed about surgery. The first will not last forever, the second may never happen.

Is it possible to sleep during the day? I know this can be considered a very bad thing but frankly, sometimes, it helps. You are a real try-er, you’ve busted a gut trying to do the best things, might be time now to try to rest and ease up in preparation for resuming the fight! Your body is crying out for a break I think.

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Yea, my doctor put me on the antibiotics for an ingrown hair. She wanted to avoid possible infection and the ensuing lancing for removal. I do rest during the day and meditate or do binaural beats, but sleep is difficult to manage, even during the day.

Honestly, I feel like my husband left me because he couldn’t deal with my constant illnesses. I know most of it isn’t my fault, but feel like the PsA could have been avoided if I took better care of myself up until then. IDK. Like the only thing that matters in my life right now is getting healthy, no matter what. I am getting hyper-sensitive to even small changes in my health and definitely take things too far sometimes. I took 3 days off from working out last week because my body indeed told me to. Low energy, super sore muscles, joint stiffness in the morning which I really haven’t had in a while. Thing is, when I do my morning cardio my joints and muscles feel better for several hours. By night time, they get worse again. I seriously don’t know where to let up on this routine. Please suggest.

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Perfectly good human beings get ill and perfectly good human beings have some failings. PsA is not your fault. A lot of people don’t take care of themselves but clearly you do now, which is what matters. Just don’t go OTT because that would be counterproductive, you don’t need the stress.

A divorce in itself is an enormous challenge so I’m not surprised you’re all over the place, anyone would be. I reckon you should expect to feel unhappy and unwell for a while longer because there is no magic wand for all this. But it will pass so patience is required. (Mind you, I don’t have much of that! But I do try.)

Sounds like a pretty good result you’re getting from your morning exercises. However, I’m wondering whether you could try reigning the exercises in just a little … I say this because my experience of PsA is that high levels of exertion can, at times, make me feel good short-term but rebound on me later on. I’ve learned to really go for things … walking, swimming, whatever … but to stop just a little sooner than I feel inclined to.

What a tough time for you. I reckon it was a positive move taking time off work, I’ve got a feeling that wasn’t an easy decision for you. Please be forgiving of yourself. I have had some gruesome times in life (like most oldies!) but have come through so much better than anticipated. It’ll be the same for you. Don’t deny the pain you are going through, but know that it will pass. We’re here.

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‘This too will pass’ is for me one of the most intensely irritating phrases but also the most true. And when I get overwhelmed especially by what PsA throws at me as well as just life, I repeat to it myself constantly. And it helps because it puts me in ‘waiting mode’ emotionally and that than lessens the panic issues.

And if it helps every time I think I’ve got PsA behaving well, something always happens. I gashed my shin one September it took 7 months to heal, 7 months of attending my GP nurse for dressings weekly, sometime twice weekly. It got infected twice so two lots of antibiotics and I had to shower in a plastic boot thing for the entire 7 months. But it passed, leaving a scar behind, but it passed.

However two months before that I discovered I had spontaneously developed two fractures in my pelvis. Massive panic over osteoporosis from steroids and being past the menopause etc but it turns out I don’t have any osteoporosis, certainly not in my hips and very mild osteopenia in my neck which is fairly standard for post menopausal women. And that passed even though I spent the entire summer on a walker feeling so fed up because I couldn’t do anything.

The following year I spent 8 long weeks having persistent diarrhoea, which eventually landed me in hospital for IV antibiotics and rehydration. The cause - sulfasalazine threw a temper tantrum because I started on a biologic. It’s apparently rare but at least known about. 24 hours after stopping the sulfasalazine I stopped being resident in my bathroom. So that ended just before Christmas just gone. It passed.

Fast forward to two weeks ago, and I had been doing so well generally, I was literally skipping for joy so I decided to do some gardening - roses desperately needed pruning. Did about 5 roses, sorted out some brambles, decided that was enough went inside for a shower and when getting dressed, my back went into spasm for the very first time in my life. So I’ve just emerged from spending two weeks in tears lots of the time due to pain, taking muscle relaxers, not sleeping as bed was the worst place I could be with this back and finally I think it’s easing. So this too is passing.

The thing is we can try our heardest to do everything right, to try and keep our PsA nonsense behaving but it still likes to throw curved balls. And that’s not because we’re doing anything wrong, that’s simply, in my view anyway, just the way it is.

So the more I think that, the less I beat myself up. And the more I sit there sometimes and think to myself ‘well this disease is certainly teaching me resilence, isn’t it?’. But learning resilence is a good thing too so you’ve got to grap the positives as they trot by. And believe me my personality type has little or no patience either, but I’m certainly learning it now.

I think you’re you doing a fabulous job with all the life challenges you’ve face recently. This is just a PsA blip or a blip not helped by PsA. Either way it will pass, believe me it will. Be gentle with yourself sometimes. Give yourself time to just scream ‘unfair’ and have a crying jag and then say ‘this too will pass’ and just wait. Often you need several of those as well. But believe me it passes. Huge hugs xxx

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Dear poo_therapy,

All I can say is thank you. Knowing that I am truly not alone in this and that people like you, as opposed to my closest loved ones, understand. Sometimes I feel like a victim and become angry, the state of being which feels the worst for me. Other times I relentlessly blame myself. My true nature is of love and compassion toward all living and non-living things. I hope to come to rest in this state and let go, with forgiveness, everything that has happened to me and that I have done, or failed to do despite my best efforts. It is a process, and like everything in life worth doing takes practice and patience. I’ll never give up on myself or others. I am here to learn and share what I have learned. I am on the right path, bumpy it is, but this is how I strength train.

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You are right about the feeling good then paying for it. I’ve started doing less time with more resistance. It isn’t as intimidating as the long workouts. I’m trying to rebuild my leg muscles to support my knees better. My knees are starting to benefit as well as my lower back. My muscles get really stiff after a few days. When I go to bed they ache. So when that happens, I take the next day or two off.

I bought some dumbbells so I can work on my arms. This is really hard. My shoulders are my second worst joints, second to hips. Also, I had two rotator cuff repairs on my left shoulder. My rheumy said my left shoulder is my good one. I was surprised to hear that. I failed the test where she tells me to keep my arm up while she presses down on it.

At my last appointment in January, I had only 11 inflamed joints in my hands compared to 27 at the previous appointment :slight_smile: But I have two really bad OA joints. Ugh. Sometimes I fell like this will never end no matter what I do :frowning:

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I’ve heard that said here so often … yet it has taken me a long time to really get it. I suppose I assumed it mostly applied to long days, travelling, socialising etc. But then I realised it also applied to tasks and shorter activities.

The knees truly benefit from strengthened leg muscles, that has been a biggie for me. Mine wasted very quickly when I couldn’t walk and stupidly refused to do the recommended exercises, but they are strong now. One thing I would love to get back is suppleness in my knees, so that I can kneel down and sit back on my legs … I’m lucky to be able to get down to floor level at all but it’s a very clumsy, rather painful manouevre.

Don’t know if I could handle dumbbells etc. … I’m strong but have another condition which affects tendons and makes things a little more complicated. To be honest I’m quite confused by my flipping body what with ageing, PsA and the other thing (Ehlers Danlos). Feel like I need to move a bit more but not sure what there is that I haven’t tried or decided against already.

Go easy on your hands with all those inflamed joints … (I’m thinking lifting the weights?). Sigh, it’s so complicated! But sounds as if you’re getting some good results Kmwestmo, and if you enjoy your routine then that’s great too.