Thanks to everyone replying to my recent posts. I really appreciate it. Now that I have educated myself on PsA, I can easily connect the dots of seemingly unrelated issues that have plagued me since 1993 when this fun all started. Until 6 months ago, neither psoriasis, let alone psoriatic arthritis never occurred to doctors or myself.
The big problem has been a rheumatologist dismissing clear symptoms as “could be anything,” sticking with medications that clearly don’t work for too long and underestimating my level of pain until other doctors confirmed it. The diagnosis was seronegative RA and if my symptoms didn’t fit, well forget about them. So, I stopped discussing symptoms with her and tried to deal with the toenails and other skin outbreaks myself. Finally went to my family doctor.
My first diagnosis in 1997 was, in fact, intractable myofascial pain which in retrospect is not surprising. Doctors in Switzerland where we were living from 1992-96, saw me through 4 surgeries and 2 other hospitalizations. They eliminated MS via a spinal tap. They knew something was systemically wrong and I can’t fault them for trying to figure it out. But they couldn’t determine an underlying problem. The best they could come up with was fibromyalgia, which at that time was the latest big thing in Europe. Back in Ottawa, my new pain specialist/GP said if I did have fibro, which she doubted, it was the least of my worries.
I mentioned to Amos in another topic that moving from Geneva to Ottawa, to Washington DC, to Boston and back to Ottawa over 23 years meant rather disjointed medical care. Too many rheumatologists and doctors involved or in some cases no rheumatologist if they proved absolutely useless. One said to me on my first 10-minute visit, “you have some sort of arthritis. It’s going to get worse. See me in 5 months.” I never went back and learned to dislike rheumatologists.
It’s also interesting to note, and it’s nowhere in any of my medical records, that in my early twenties in Toronto, I was treated for severe lower back pain. Nerve blocks when the pain was unbearable helped. Xrays showed I have a tilted pelvis, and my right hip is 4cm higher that the left. So, I don’t know if that contributes to the lower back, buttock, groin and hip pain I am occasionally felled with over the years. It’s nigh on to crippling when it hits. I now know that this can be a symptom of PsA. My present rheumatologist, who I don’t trust anyway, says it’s more “age related” at 75 than PsA. Well, it wasn’t age related when I was 25 and at subsequent ages. She’s never taken a history.
I was so disabled in January 2025, I was first suspected of having avascular necrosis in my hip joint. A battery of scans in a week, determined it was 4 tears in cartilage surrounding the joint, severe tendonitis, enough swelling to impinge a nerve from the sacroiliac for 4 months. I now have permanent nerve damage behind the knee and in the Achilles tendon.
No clue if all this is PsA related or “old age.” Any ideas?
I really appreciate the insight from Poo_ therapy on how the cumulative effect of PsA could certainly explain many of my medical issues over the years. I have other autoimmune issues, since childhood, thrown into the mix and a few others just for fun. I’ve always found it hard to believe there isn’t some connection.
I have managed to live an adventure filled, wouldn’t have missed anything, life despite the medical hassles that caused a few detours along the way.
I think I nearly gave him a heart attack to boot. But I didn’t care then and care even less now.