Chugga chugga choo choo

I have been totally lazy since returning from Phoenix.  It's starting to get depressing that I have zero motivation to do anything this week.  I can't even blame it on my disease really.  Yes, I'm sore and having a bit of a flare.  Yes, I'm fatigued and needing naps through the day.  Even with that being said I just feel LAZY.  I haven't even unpacked my suit cases.  They are sitting on top of my dresser with the load of clothes I washed piled up (and folded, at least) on top of them. I need to start thinking like the little train that could and get some chugga chugga choo choo in my life.

I need to give myself a kick in the ass.  The fact that it has been raining the last few day doesn't help my urge to get anything done.

Ok enough of my pity party.  As I mentioned in my last blog I received a tube of Noxicare that I won in a contest.  I am really impressed with it.  I've been using it the last few days that I have been having rain pain.  The first night I applied it to my left shoulder and right hip.  I honestly wasn't expecting much.  I've learned to be pretty jaded about the newest greatest thing on the market.  My shoulder pain went away fairly quickly.  My hip pain however was a bit more stubborn.  I didn't lose faith yet because honestly I have quite a bit of badonkadonk if you know what I mean so there is a lot of donk for the cream to work through to get to the actual bursa which was causing me the pain.  Before bed I reapplied to the hip area and went to bed.  This application did actually help.  My pain wasn't gone, but I was comfortable enough to sleep which is something that rarely happens when my hip bursitis gets flared up.

The next day I decided to try a few new spots.  My right knee was swelling, and my ankles had become cankles.  Keep in mind a dab does it with this stuff.  I rubbed it on and went about my couch warming.  About 20 minutes later the swelling in both the knee and my ankles had reduced and the pain was gone.  I think I'm in love!  Finally this morning I woke up to my shoulders being so swollen I was having issues with my hands falling asleep.  It was so bad I was getting woken up by that awful tingle during the night.  I rubbed some Noxicare into both shoulders and the pain reduced, and I had no more problems with my hands falling asleep.

I highly recommend this for a topical option for pain relief.  It uses natural ingredients to reduce swelling and pain, doesn't smell, and isn't oily.  It is a bit on the costy side, but a small dab goes a long way so a tube should last quite some time.  I'll be adding this to my products I love page!

Noxicare web site

I hope you all have a great week!  Happy Hump day!

H

Greetings from Phoenix!

My oldest daughter and I are home for the holidays!  I'm really tired after the drive, but my joints feel SO much better (as always) from the desert climate.

I went to see Dr. Lavery last week and have officially decided to go on disability.  My skin was TERRIBLE when I went in.  This is what my hand looked like, and my feet, knees, and elbows were equally bad.

You can even see how sausagey my hands have gotten.  My swelling has improved since starting Arava, but I didn't really realize how much constant swelling I had because I see it every day.  He prescribed me Betamethasone dipropionate, a steroid topical cream, and referred me to a dermatologist.  We are pretty much at the end of options though for treatment.  I am going to see if the Derm can get me started on Stelara (approved for Psoriasis, in clinical trials for Psoriatic Arthritis), but I can't get an appointment till I get back from Phoenix.  It is also questionable if the insurance will approve it because I have Psoriatic Arthritis.  ANYWAY, I've been using the steroid since Thursday and my skin is much better.  I'll take a pic to insert later so you can see the improvement after 5 days.  The cracking has stopped, and I do still have some scaling, but it isn't coming off in sheets of skin anymore.  My daughter also got me some Dream Cream from Lush to try.  I put some on one hand today and it has improved even more and is very soothing.  I'll probably quit the steroid tomorrow and just use the Dream Cream the rest of my trip unless it flares again.

I'll try to remember to come say hi occasionally over the next 3 weeks, but you'll have to forgive me if vacation outweighs blogging.

Hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas!

Rub a dub dub, I'm blogging from the tub.

Yes, today's blog is brought to you live from my bathtub   Today was the second day I have had to come home because of arthritis.  My knees, feet, hands and back are the culprits today.  My hips hurt as well, but it feels more like that is bursa related than arthritis related.  It's sad I've had these afflictions long enough to actually be able to differentiate types of pain.  I've been passing a lot of time this afternoon reading some older posts on Inspire.com and a constant theme, especially with the Psoriasis group, is the food vs medicine debate.  Some posts are nearly fanatical about it.

I thought I would give some of my personal experience in that area.  Having had psoriasis as long as I have, I have probably tried just about every OTC, prescription, and alternative method I've ever read.  I have done many of them for PA as well, but it's still in the trial and error phase even with almost a decade of affliction.

I'll start with some background.  I was diagnosed with psoriasis in 1998 after a bad reaction to taking the Anthrax vaccine while in the Army caused my immune system to go into hyper drive. At that time there was still very little known about psoriasis to include causes and treatments.  The general route of care was topical agents such as lotions and steroid creams.  Occasionally for a particularly bad flare up a steroid shot would be administered.  Tar was a big seller to the psoriasis crowd and it did give many people, myself included, some relief.  At the time I was diagnosed I had a pretty healthy diet and I exercised more than regularly.  I did smoke a lot and drink alcohol regularly.

So there you have the beginning of the journey which I will be on for the rest of my life.  I couldn't give you names of all the prescription topical treatments I have tried.  If it's out there and legal I have been prescribed it and used it.  I have been on every biological available for Psoriatic Arthritis.  Enbrel worked awesome on my psoriasis (didn't have arthritis diagnosed yet at that time), but it depleted my immune system so much that I went from never getting sick to pneumonia that took me out for 2 weeks and getting every cold and viral malady that passed within 100 feet of me.  Methotrexate worked well on it's own and in combination with Remicade, but started making me very sick so I quit taking it.  I had a really good 5 year run on Remicade and it stopped working on my joints so I decided that the benefits no longer outweighed the risks.  I was biological free for a little over a year and sustaining some level of comfort some of the time with Vicodin.  Then my arthritis kicked into high gear.  I tried a run with sulfasalazine to avoid going onto Biologicals again, but it did nothing.  Tried methotrexate again, but I was living next to the porcelain god for at least 24 hours after taking my shot from that.  My skin was already thrashed and cracking, but the arthritis attack was what sent me back to biologicals.  Humira started working on my skin almost immediately, but about a week into it I started losing hair by the handful,  getting mouth sores so severe it felt like I had been eating glass, developed hives and some other rather nasty side effects.  My Dr took me off that and now I am on the last hope which is Simponi.  My side effects have been generally mild, nausea, dizziness, but I have also not had any improvement of my psoriasis or arthritis.  The psoriasis is actually worse than when I started.  I have resorted to using a topical steroid to get minimal relief from the cracking and bleeding, but I itch like I've been rolling in poison ivy.  I also got a TDAP vaccine which took me out for most of a week from work because of getting almost all of the potential "mild" side effects.  Mild my ass!  I think that pretty much covers the pharmaceutical side of things.

In this whole process I have tried the holistic treatments with mixed results.  Dead sea salt, occlusion with natural nut butters and oils, high doses of vitamin and mineral supplements, and food exclusion.  I am very fortunate to have a forward thinking Rheumatologist who is willing to work with the treatments you want to pursue.  He is knowledgeable of both pharmaceutical and holistic treatments out there and even has some alternative treatments he'll let people like me who are at the last option try.

As for diet I've tried most of those too.  I've done paleo, juice fast, all whole foods, all raw foods, exclusion, and many more.  For me I don't seem to have food triggers.  I do feel better when I eat a well rounded diet with minimal processed foods.  I try to stick with organics, local meats, produce, dairy and honey.  I love food so for me turning what is available to me into something fantastic is an adventure.  It doesn't however improve my psoriasis or my psoriatic arthritis.

To the people out there who swear by diet controlled psoriasis, I am so glad that you have found relief.  Perhaps though the reality is that your psoriasis is just like the rest of us in that it is immune related and you are ALLERGIC to foods.  Rather than hives or stomach upset your immune system responds with psoriasis. Each of us with psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis have some reason that our immune system has begun to attack us.  Not all of us are food.  That some of us are food issues is really a blessing.

At the end of the day my take on drugs vs food is that both are vitally essential for us to live the best life we can.  You have to feed your body healthy food to be as healthy as you can be.  For some, like me, being healthy as we can be still means arthritis flares (and arthritis all the time) and psoriasis everywhere.