Here goes ...

I decided to create a blog about my journey as it relates to RA for a couple of reasons. Mainly, when I blog elsewhere about it, I always have this nagging feeling that my friends suspect I'm needing sympathy. Not really. Writing helps me clear my head. I figure, even if nobody is reading this, keeping a record of my journey will help get me through it. If somebody stumbles upon it and decides to read it, maybe it'll help them in some way, too.

I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis by my PCP just a couple of months after the home birth of my last daughter. It was early 2005. Having been a typist for a decade, hand pain was nothing foreign to me. During the end of my pregnancy, however, I was experiencing - for no good reason since I was hardly working - completely unrelievable, persistent, serious pain. My natural, unmedicated childbirth experience was NOTHING compared to the pain in my hands. The tears I shed during labor were all related to my hands - not the belly, not the private parts, not the back - just the unrelenting pain in my hands. I would soak them in the middle of the night in a bowl of scalding water because that offered a couple of minutes of relief. I tried dreaming of ways I could microwave them. No joke - when you're in such pain, and especially if there's no explanation for it, it can make a person crazy.

It is important to know that I am not one to trust western medicine easily. I don't run (myself nor my kids) to the doctor for much. However, after a month or so postpartum, I recognized this pain was not normal, and I was growing increasingly frustrated with its unyielding nature, so I went to the doctor and had some bloodwork done. When my doctor called me around 7 PM a day or so later ... well, the doctor doesn't call in the evening if it's nothing. Arthritis? Don't you have to be old, at least older than 30, to have that? I pulled out my trusty old AMA Family Medical Guide and looked it up. As the words "long-term" and "auto-immune" and "crippling" leapt from page 552, I was dizzy. Under the "treatment" section, the book offered this gem, "The best thing you can do is to come to terms with what may be a permanent condition." Four years later, I can confidently say that is a helluvalot easier said than done.

It was winter. My infant girl was exclusively (and very successfully) breastfeeding. I was cloth diapering. I was homeschooling one daughter, and dealing with another in public school. I was a housewife. I didn't have time to be "sick". I didn't have the patience to be stiff. I refused to see a specialist because I was determined to nurse for a year, dammit. I begged my doctor to just let me have that - just let me nurse because my body "failed" the first round, I couldn't bear to fail again. Despite the tough times, despite the permanent damage to my joints during that year, I do not regret choosing nursing over treatment one bit. It was that important to me.

I had some really bad days that first winter with RA. Mornings I couldn't get myself out of bed. Evenings I couldn't undress nor bathe myself. Days it was all I could do to change a diaper. Weeks I couldn't drive. I grew intimate with humility. (I have to throw in here that my husband is amazing and I don't know what I'd do without him.)

I researched when I could. My heart screamed that there had to be a natural solution to this. The roadblock I kept running into was fundamental - nobody knows WHY. So, I dove into that. I am no scientist, but my personal theory is that it has more to do with hormones than has been officially studied. I think this because of the many women, my age, whose RA affliction followed long periods of birth control usage. RA affects far more women than men, so there has to be some significance to that.

I was done with birth control, and was left with "what triggers a flare in me?" Over several months, I figured out that sugar and dairy products triggered my inflammation. I LOVE ice cream, so that was a Most Unpleasant Discovery. By the end of that summer, though, dramatically reducing my intake of sugar and milk made a marked difference in my mobility. Losing weight was a side-effect of my plan, not the intention. Being skinny is a whole 'nother blog. I'll just say, if you think people stare when you're overweight, you should take a walk in my skinny shoes and you'll be surprised.

In my quest for natural remedies, I discovered Tai Chi Chih. The only place I found to learn that joyful movement practice was a Jewish retirement center. Go figure. So, once a week, for $3/session, I learned and practiced as part of a group of women who were all at least 35 years older than me. Again, humility is my friend. My instructor gave me a DVD, and I eventually was comfortable enough to do it on my own. It does help a lot. I hate to admit that I'm just too lazy to do it every day. When I am in a flare though, I always go back to it, and it has yet to let me down.

Then, there are the supplements. I started taking Methylsulfonylmethane (MSM) daily. I'm not consistent with these because, truthfully, they make me gag because they are such huge pills. I have noticed, however, that when I do take them, the swelling goes down. Of course, I can't forget the calcium. Now that I'm approaching that 35 mark, calcium's a given anyway, so I need to take it, and I do.

So, there's some background, a start, and my hands are starting to cramp a bit, so I think that's enough for now. I have written a few posts elsewhere which I will include here to bring my story current. Until then, I gotta keep movin'.