Over the last 6 months I have been feeling great; exercising more, lost weight, low pain levels. I'm on Enbrel, a small co-dose of prednisone and Celebrex.
A month ago I had to return to my home town quickly and flew instead of driving as I usually do.
I felt a bit 'off ' a few days later and then the day after I flew back I woke up to find my pain levels way up and lots of muscle spasm. The next day I woke to find my heart had gone into atrial fibrillation/flutter with a very erratic and fast heat beat (300) which was almost impossible to feel the normal way.
As this episode was much more severe than previous episodes I injected the blood thinning drug clexane to lower the chance of a stroke, doubled my pills to slow the heart rate and hoped it would go away within 36 hours as it has in the past. This didn't happen so I took myself of to hospital where they fast tracked me into the emergency unit.
While my heart reset itself that night, (I was booked in for a cardioversion the next morning) the blood tests I had there showed I had a low grade viral infection and it is surmised that this set off the PsA flare and that set off the AF.
Since coming out of hospital I have had to have several physiotherapy session to ease out the knotted muscles/tendons.
On the good side the tests I had in hospital show my heart to be in good condition for an old fella.
Today I will be back on the bike and hopefully headed for at least another 6 months of feeling good again. And I will only fly again in an emergency!
The lesson for me is to not get careless and put myself in places that have a higher risk of infection.