How are you doing now that it has been a few months with the Enbrel?
Swede54 said:
I'll take my first injection of Enbrel tomorrow, and am hoping that it will do SOMETHING --
HI Raven, I get that weird feeling being on the medication, MTX, but before starting it just tired and 'weird' like you mentioned.. PsA makes you more tired and puts stress on the body and organs also. People who don't have PsA don't understand what we are going through. We decline going out as we ache or know we won't be able to keep up. Yes, we're grate full we can walk, talk, and as we look at others worse off than us. I'm sorry you lost your mom at a young age and your dad recently.
Yes!! That is it, I knew something was wrong with me. I thought i was just going crazy.. I am tired all the time--finally i was diagnosed last week with PA and started the methotrexate(sp?) on friday .. then i read that it may not even work for PA.. i just dont want to become completely disabled in the future that is what i thought the Methotrexate would control .. I am not NUTS -but none of my inlaws believe what i have is real.. that is very stressful to me..my sister has fibromyalgia and thyroid disease but to our knowledge noone has psoraisis or PA in my family.. However, my grandmother died at 31 from brain cancer so it is possible she had it and noone knew.it would not be so bad if i did not have to get up and go to work 5 days a week.but i have to work because my husband is unemployed due to back fusion and shoulder surgeries.. i just want to be able to work for 6 more years until my kids are out of college .. if i can make it that long, i will be alright.. . I pray for everyone out there suffering..
Hardly anyone ever becomes disabled from PsA assuming the do the big three: take thier meds, exercise daily and healthy living. If the MTX doesn't work something else will eventually.
Tntlamb, thanks for that. Does each of the five different PsA types work better with a specific type of medicine?
The spondylitis version works better with a combo of a DMARD and Biologic. Mutilans is everything you can throw at it. The others vary in intensity so widley its hard to say........................
Generally unwell "ill" when a flare is happening. That's what I told my rheumy. He didn't seem to understand that. He was puzzled when I said my fingers are "fizzy" too--but that's how I describe the discomfort during times when they're not really that bad, but they are "fizzy" all the time!
Agree!! Very well stated, tntlamb.
tntlamb said:
Allan has it. In regards to OTHER people attitudes, it has to be a non issue, or it will drive you nuts. Its all perspective I know so many who have chronic disease or great loss. I look at it this way, why should I feel worse than my friend with liver cancer, or or my son who lost his wife at 22 to melenoma, or my granddaughter who lost her mother at 3 mos old and then her dad at 6 and has to be raised by me (and my wife)? How about the person with chronic sinus infections who spends weeks of every year very sick on antibiotics? The one with migraines, the one who needs a second hip replacement before the age of 60, the one with breast cancer? I would not trade my problems for any of those of the people I mentioned. I'm NOT downplaying how seriousPsA can be; I haven't been able to turn my head fully in a decade. I spent 2 years in a "chair" and another detoxing from pain meds.
BUT would I trade that for cancer or loss or really bad headaches? I don't think I would. I have come to terms with my own issues. Everyone traveling down the road of life is carrying some really heavy baggage, you just don't know what it is OR more importantly their ability to carry it. I find that perspective helps. Once you take full ownership of YOUR disease, it becomes much easier. When you become fully empathetic towards others burdens and don't compare them to your own assuming theirs are worse FOR THEM your become lighter. On of the most serious cases and life changing PsA belongs to a meber here that is so busy taking care of not only her children but anybody's children that need care, she forgets her PsA until it puts her in the hospital (as it has many times.) Not from "pain" but a total inability to motate. She even finds time to help others with PsA