Hi Everyone! New to the forum and fairly new to PsA. I’m a 32 year old female, and I was diagnosed in October of last year, 3 years postpartum. My current symptoms that I would love an opinion on,(in addition to my normal PsA symptoms), are pins and needles everywhere. (Special note to the ladies: I mean EVERYWHERE). I have always had pins and needles and numbness in my hands and feet, even wrists and arms, and until now i was confident is was all part of the arthritis. Then I started having occasional episodes in my head. Also in my face, accompanied by numbness. The first episodes were years before my diagnosis, but few and far between. Then a couple of months ago it started being a regular occurrence, and now I suffer all day long. Because severe joint pain everywhere from my jaw to my toes wasn’t enough, it now feels like my head, face, ears, eyes, and all my limbs are simultaneously being prodded with needles. I had an EEG yesterday morning and I’m scheduled For an MRI in a month, but I’m curious if anyone else has experienced this? I will give my history below.
For years my GP brushed me off, everytime I had a new symptom he would tell me it was normal. At 20 years old after serving at a restaursnt for less than a year, he told me I had carpal tunnel on both sides, and sent me for foot orthotics. I trusted my doctor and never thought twice about it. Shortly after I was diagnosed with endometreosis, then interstitial cystitis (painful bladder syndrome). With everything already wrong in my body it was easy for my doctor to say anythung wrong with me was “normal” under the circumstances. I stopped complaining because I felt like it was all in my head. My symptoms started to seem random and unrelated. Was it stress? Was I just looking for attention? I honestly didn’t know anymore.
After having my daughter it was like every painful or weird symptom I had ever had started to hit me all at once. I went back to GP and explained that my feet and hands were constantly in pain, that I couldn’t sleep anymore because of my knees, back, and shoulders. I had gone to physio after a bad case of runners knee in both knees and he said that I had the joint mobility of a 70 year old woman. Just what every 30 year old wants to hear. I was also having episodes of severe chest pain which turned out to be costochondritis. I was fatigued and seemed to get sick all the time. I had developed asthma out of nowhere. Other symptoms were: frequent urination, bladder incontinence, mouth sores, hair loss, increasing frequency of migraines, and pins and needles or numbness in painful joint areas. I took my big list of symptoms, in chronological order, to my doctor. My GPs answer: sleep apnea testing.
After some ER trips and a lot of frustration I tried the walk in clinic. The doctor there asked for my history and suspected lupus or RA. Markers came back negative, but she still referred to me to rheumy. Imagine my surprise 6 months later, having not known I had psoriasis, that my diagnosis was PsA. I’ve been on methotrexate and sulfasalazine, but rheumy doesn’t think anything other than a Biologic will work so supposed to start at the end of the month. My flare up seems never ending and since diagnosis the pain has spread to all other joints, most painful lately being my jaw and shoulders. I also seem to get weaker by the day. Adding these new problems of the pins and needles and the possibility of something else wrong with me, is making me a little crazy! I keep being a mom and going to work but it’s becoming so hard to focus. I am not even one year into diagnosis, not sure how people manage a lifetime!