Living with RA

In late December 2006 I woke up to go to work one morning and my hands were cramped up so much that they looked like lobster claws.  Try as hard as I could, I couldn’t open them up all the way.  They were also so swollen that my co-workers helped me ice them up to get my rings off.

I thought I had maybe just slept with my hands clenched and they were maybe just stiff.

But it didn’t go away.

Within a few weeks my legs began to swell, fill up with water and I could barely walk.  My husband had to help me get out of bed in the mornings and get dressed for work.

My primary care doctor thought I might have fibromyalgia.  But that wasn’t it.  She worked for several weeks, running many tests, the only strange thing was that I had eosoniphila that went away once the RA was treated.

She sent me to a rheumatologist.  He knew right away what was wrong.  Sero-negative Rheumatoid Arthritis.  That means that I have the disease, but not a high enough RA count in my blood for it to be easily discovered.  He immediately started me on prednisone, I had instant relief.

So, this has been my battle.  Living with RA.  It can be achy, painful and annoying.  The worst part is the tired.

Rheumatoid Arthritis is not like osteoarthritis that one gets from wear and tear of the joints.  It is an auto immune disorder in which my body thinks that I constantly have a virus, so it attacks it.  Since I don’t have a virus, that means that my body attacks itself.  Mostly, the soft tissue (including sometimes, the organs) in the joints.

There is no cure, only treatments.

The goal now, is to get off the steroids and onto something less fattening.

I am not the type of person to let this get to me.  I am still relatively healthy, if not much more tired, and much more fat.  I have decided I will fight it the whole time.  I am still enjoying my life, because this is the only one I have.