Sparky Asked
Ask a simple question, I will almost never give a simple answer. Sparky asked about my medical issues, and I don't know that I've ever listed all of them in a row, not lately anyway. So here it is, less the three suicidal episodes, while technically medical in that depression is a diagnosis, I have the tattoo to prove that I won't be exiting this incarnation by my own hand. (sad that, some days breathing is all I get to control and it would be a relief not to, ya know. But no, not actively suicidal ever again.)
~~~~~~~~~~~~
I have almost died several times, not by my own hand. My mother had asthma when she was pregnant with me and almost killed us both giving birth to me because of that. I remember as a kid she always had one of those shot kit things around. She didn’t have another attack after I was born, so between the two of us, we were pretty damned determined to get me born, but it was not an auspicious start to things.
I was about a year and a half old when I got very very sick and was having convulsions and all manner of nasty things and we lived way out in the middle of nowhere so getting to the hospital took a really long time, not helped by the fact that it was flooding at the time and the bridge over the creek near our house was out so my parents had to take a longer route. Finally reaching the hospital, my real doctor was out and the fill in guy misdiagnosed me, though in hindsight that may not have been his fault. In any case, the medication he prescribed not only didn’t help, it almost killed me. And then I was properly diagnosed. I had measles. I had broken out internally, the usual spots were INSIDE my nose and throat and mouth and the doctor(my real one by that time) surmised right on down, not easily seen or recognized. And I was really damn sick by that time.
This set up a pattern of weird.
I had a single menstrual cycle when I was ten. And no more. The Summer before I turned 13 I was getting sick, but there seemed no cause. (It may be interesting to add that during this Summer we moved, my mother’s divorce from my father was finalized and I was in a new school where I knew absolutely nobody, so it was not just that my body was ill, I was also under a lot of stress, coincidentally. I felt like a leper with running sores literally everywhere, face, chest, belly, shoulders, back, in the crease of my thighs, oh it was horrible.) That school year was a nightmare. I was having migraines, I had cystic acne and I finally had another menstrual cycle, it was a hat trick of hellishness, in my opinion. I got sicker and sicker, there were a LOT of trips to the ER and by Christmas it was bad. I also didn’t have another cycle. At New Year’s, I was so sick that they put me in the hospital where I went into a coma and my doctor (a new guy, whom I still adore, no matter that I haven’t seen him in decades) told my mom that not only did he not know what was wrong, he didn’t know how to fix it, what caused it or if I would wake up. (And obviously, nobody told me these things until later)
I did, in fact, wake up, a few days later. No reason. My doctor, after letting me out of the hospital, thought maybe it was some hormone related issue. I had my first GYN exam at 13. It was not the most pleasant experience. (why yes, understatement is a talent of mine, why do you ask?)
My doctor theorized that the lack of menstrual cycle was flushing toxins into my blood and they were being released with the cystic acne, though he thought that it could just have easily damaged my liver or kidneys, but it had not. I was put on birth control pills, in effect chemically inducing puberty. (the added bonus was that this also stopped the migraines) I was also put on a new and experimental drug, Accutane. That shit was a godsend. (still a Christian in those days, me) But as a result, I had to have blood tests every week and so I looked like a damn junkie with holes in my arms constantly.
Six months of Accutane and I was again a relatively normal teenager with a LOT of scars, but not as many as I would have had without the Accutane. (and if you are familiar with that, it is a Vitamin A derivative, yes, that will figure in the story later)
I struggled with cystic acne all through school, basically. A few more times I took Accutane but never in the massive amounts I had first been given.
As a side note, when I was 16 or so, I got chicken pox, and again it was fucked up. I had the damn spots in my eyes and had to sit in a dark room for nearly a week and couldn’t read or anything. Not reading is like not breathing to me. THAT SUCKED. Not germane to the story, but one more example of fucked up.
Need I add that I had depressive tendencies?
My doctor, who was everyone in the immediate family’s doctor, diagnosed colitis somewhere around age 17. My mom and I had moved out of my step-father’s house and my doctor knew not only that, but that my step-father was a raging alcoholic. I think he knew that it was stress induced at that time. Though at that point I had been unable to eat hard yoked eggs for a while, so it could have been food induced colitis just as easily. (I didn’t lose the ability to eat scrambled eggs or omelets until I was nearly 30, the sensitivity to broccoli came around 24) I spent a lot of time in the school counselor’s office after my father died in a car wreck when I was 15, and then when my mom and step dad got back together. (And they still are together. I call him dad more often now than I did then) I am a third generation adult child of an alcoholic, so that puts my childhood/teen years into some interesting perspective. (I was diagnosed with clinical depression and seasonal affective disorder at 25) Around the time of the colitis I was also diagnosed with recurring labyrinthistis, inner ear infections of joy that make me fun on escalators and elevators. (really, take me on an elevator and I act drunk from the dizzy disorientation, it’s fun. Not.)
More interjection: It didn’t help that I was a sensitive artistic type. I started writing poetry and stories as soon as I could pick up a pencil. (my first published poem was in the school paper when I was ten) I was in drama and choir and on the speech team and my step father is an old school redneck with little understanding of these things, and I was in Gifted&Talented programmes in school, so I was also totally a bookwormy geek. (And I repeated third grade, another long story. I was deemed ‘not mature enough’ for 4th grade. I suspect because I didn’t like my teacher very much and hated math so refused to do it. Um. Stubborn. Yes. Plus, all my friends were a grade below me because my birthday was before the cutoff for school, just barely, and theirs were after. So yeah. Would love to shove my triple digit IQ in my 3rd grade teacher’s face, vindictive bitch that I am)
In my mid twenties I started having these painful swellings in my armpits. Really deep down inside were lumps that would swell and hurt and it sucked.
I went to my doctor, some new guy I didn’t know. (Incidentally, this was post-Unfortunate Incident and I was on anti-depressants and in therapy) He didn’t know what the fuck and put me on antibiotics. I am a perfect example of what happens when antibiotics are over prescribed. Also of note: it hurt like hell and I never once asked for pain meds. It actually never occurred to me. (I had a pinched nerve some years before and they put me on Percocet which gave me horrible violent rape nightmares so I never EVER asked for pain meds because of that. I can take Vicoden and Codeine and that is about all I ever trust. My mother has similar results with Percodan. Perc things just aren’t good for us, obviously!) He tried several antibiotics over about a six month period. I didn’t know better so I just took them, because I’m a dork. As a result I developed a sensitivity to anything ending in cin, Penicillin, Amoxicillin, Whateveracillin, all bad. Fever, chills, shakes, disorinetation, the whole enchilada of ugly. And a pain in the ass if I have infections.
He sent me to a surgeon, who flat out told me there was nothing he could do. I returned to my doctor, told him the surgeon wasn’t able to help and by this time the lump under my arm was so painful that I couldn’t lift my arm and it was actually visible. I told him that if he didn’t lance it or cut it open or just get it the hell out of me I’d use a razor blade and take care of it myself. Still didn’t ask for pain meds since it literally didn’t occur to me.
And now for another interesting aside. I had a friend at that time who had just finished nursing school. Unknown to me, one of her former classmates was subbing in the clinic that day. The doctor, out of the exam room, told my friend’s classmate that I was attention seeking, obviously, since I was in therapy. Um. Jackass. She thought he was full of shit but couldn’t tell me while she was employed by him. She was disturbed enough by this to tell our mutual friend, without using names since, you know, confidentiality. More on this later.
Apparently, he decided to humour me. He lanced the fucker. And oh my gods it was gross. He was also a little embarrassed since he thought it was nothing. After a LOT of yuck drained out it stopped pushing on the nerve or whatever and didn‘t hurt like it had, he dressed it and sent me away. I never went back to that doctor. I went to another town for a doctor, and in Wyoming, that is a total pain in the ass, there is a LOT of miles between towns. I did however, find a dermatologist out of the deal.
I had been suffering with this mysterious thing for a very long time. By the time I got to the derm, I was miserable and sad and freaked out. I had also started having migraines again. And my new doctor had started me on Accutane again and still on Bcpills. I had recognized the goo as the same kind of drainage from the cystic acne. But from lumps under my arms, that was new and horrible.
My new doctor became alarmed when I started having memory issues and the migraines increased. She sent me to a neurologist and ophthalmologist. I had started to show signs of intra(inter?)cranial hypertension because my optic nerves were swelling. The neurologist did more tests including an MRI (I almost fell asleep in the machine, the thumping was very soothing, the techs thought I was insane). He determined that I had Pseudotumor Cerebri and needed a lumbar puncture and to be taken OFF Accutane for the rest of eternity and put on whatever they give to high altitude sickness and glaucoma. I forget the name of it, but there’s a bottle in my medicine cabinet. The spinal tap was fun. I was drugged up and asked my neuro (A VERY handsome bearded bear of a hunk) if he could reactivate the LSD in my spinal column while he was digging around in there. Sadly, he allowed as how he couldn’t. But I did make him and the attending nurse laugh. I appear to be fun while drugged.
PTC is made worse by Vitamin A derivatives. (see, I said that would come back to haunt me) So added to the list of antibiotics I can’t take, add tetracycline and anything cycline and retinol named.
Now, at the time I was on a drug that increased the problem, but it is not at all clear if the Accutane I was on as a kid (that never gave me these problems back then) had caused it or if it was a condition that existed and just flared badly when the drug was reintroduced after not taking it for nearly a decade. And my doctors couldn’t say why it did this at all, since I had been fine with it as a kid. After several months of meds (and the three vials of fluid taken out of my spine) I was pronounced cured and sent on my way.
Then after all that, I finally go to the dermatologist. After telling her ALL this, and without even seeing more, she hits the nail on the head. I have Hidradenitis Suppurativa. A cousin illness to cystic acne. It seemed so obvious, after the fact. And as an added bonus, EVERYDAMNDRUG they prescribe for it, on the banned list.
If I take the stuff that stops the HS, it flares the PTC. I’m so screwed.
So I avoid stress or injury (which will flare the HS) and anything Vitamin A (which flares the PTC) and try not to eat the things the doctor said have a lot of Vitamin A, though really, it’s an excuse to avoid liver. I still eat spinach and carrots, just not every week.
Back to that earlier aside. I was relating all this to my friend, the nurse and she got this look on her face, sort of pale like. She told me about her friend who was subbing for that doctor and how he had told her he thought there was nothing wrong with me and that he gave me antibiotics to shut me up. Wow. Since she had figured out who her friend was talking about when I told her my version, it was a little weird, and the three of us got together and bitched about that doctor. Yes, I should have reported his sorry ass to some board somewhere, but I didn’t.
Time passes.
I am doing my best to be good and keep healthy, though working nights and being a fat smoking drinking American, well, mostly I just try to stay out of trouble. And then I start to have migraines again. With the added bonus of vertigo. One day I couldn’t leave my bed the vertigo was so bad. Thankfully, the bathroom was attached to my bedroom at that apartment, so crawling to the bathroom was doable.
I go to a whole new round of doctors, since by that time I had moved. Guess what? PTC isn’t cured, it’s just a remission. My new Neuro was appalled that I had just been sent off to the wild blue with no instructions. It had been several years though, and we had thought then that it was likely a drug interaction. Nope. The vertigo was a new and exciting symptom of the migraines and the PTC was ramping up. I was put back on the meds, but happily no lumbar puncture. The gastro issues had also increased and test after test weas inconclusive and those doctors could find no reason for the constant diarrhea and I was getting tired of living on mashed taters and Gatorade, though I still like them. (and still live on that when I’m sick, they are the only things that don’t make me have explosive diarrhea when I have a flare up)
In the meantime… I had ouchy patches of something on my elbows. And my shins. And my regular doctor couldn’t figure it out. Great. And then the middle finger of my left hand got so swollen for no reason at all that I was crying every time I used that hand. OMG was that painful. So off to the doctor I go. He gives me naproxen and sends me home. It didn’t help the finger, but stopped the colitis cold. Cool side effect I thought. When I got in to the derm finally, she took one look at ALL of it and said, in effect, congratulations, you have Psoriasis AND Psoriatic arthritis. Yay you. She got me topical meds and sent me to a rheumatologist. He was super fantastic and ALL full of win. Really, I have had so damn many Doctors of Suck and Fail that it is wonderful to find a good one. So he does a boatload of Xrays and tells me I have “rather more osteoarthritis for someone your age” in just about every place you can have it. And oh, yes, PsArth in hands. Oh yay. Not. So I go on Methotrexate and stop drinking. Damn, that sucked. A year and a half later, the Psoriasis is controlled and the PsArth is down to a level where I can make a fist again. And I had to change insurance companies and therefore change doctors and that sucked and so did the new doctor.
Now I’ve been off the cancer meds for the arthritis for about, well… about three years. (I love how everything they give me for everything is for some other illness, yuck)
I am therefore a noncompliant arthritis and psoriasis patient, since I ma not taking anything but topical stuff, which doesn’t work all the at great, really.
Last year I was using Burdock Tincture for the Psoriasis and wow! That worked. It all want away! And then… well.
My sister getting murdered kind of stressed me out, so I have been flaring pretty bad with the HS and P, NOT a fun combination. I know that the arthritis is increasing, but the side effects of the methotrexate are really worse (not to mention the can’t drink on it) so I will deal as long as I can. And now that I am starting to feel less stressed, try the burdock again and see if I can make that magic happen again and make the psoriasis go away again.
And really, I drink about once a month, I could give it up and insurance will cover the methotrexate, but dear gods, I just can't face it. So I will put up with it. Because I can.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
I have almost died several times, not by my own hand. My mother had asthma when she was pregnant with me and almost killed us both giving birth to me because of that. I remember as a kid she always had one of those shot kit things around. She didn’t have another attack after I was born, so between the two of us, we were pretty damned determined to get me born, but it was not an auspicious start to things.
I was about a year and a half old when I got very very sick and was having convulsions and all manner of nasty things and we lived way out in the middle of nowhere so getting to the hospital took a really long time, not helped by the fact that it was flooding at the time and the bridge over the creek near our house was out so my parents had to take a longer route. Finally reaching the hospital, my real doctor was out and the fill in guy misdiagnosed me, though in hindsight that may not have been his fault. In any case, the medication he prescribed not only didn’t help, it almost killed me. And then I was properly diagnosed. I had measles. I had broken out internally, the usual spots were INSIDE my nose and throat and mouth and the doctor(my real one by that time) surmised right on down, not easily seen or recognized. And I was really damn sick by that time.
This set up a pattern of weird.
I had a single menstrual cycle when I was ten. And no more. The Summer before I turned 13 I was getting sick, but there seemed no cause. (It may be interesting to add that during this Summer we moved, my mother’s divorce from my father was finalized and I was in a new school where I knew absolutely nobody, so it was not just that my body was ill, I was also under a lot of stress, coincidentally. I felt like a leper with running sores literally everywhere, face, chest, belly, shoulders, back, in the crease of my thighs, oh it was horrible.) That school year was a nightmare. I was having migraines, I had cystic acne and I finally had another menstrual cycle, it was a hat trick of hellishness, in my opinion. I got sicker and sicker, there were a LOT of trips to the ER and by Christmas it was bad. I also didn’t have another cycle. At New Year’s, I was so sick that they put me in the hospital where I went into a coma and my doctor (a new guy, whom I still adore, no matter that I haven’t seen him in decades) told my mom that not only did he not know what was wrong, he didn’t know how to fix it, what caused it or if I would wake up. (And obviously, nobody told me these things until later)
I did, in fact, wake up, a few days later. No reason. My doctor, after letting me out of the hospital, thought maybe it was some hormone related issue. I had my first GYN exam at 13. It was not the most pleasant experience. (why yes, understatement is a talent of mine, why do you ask?)
My doctor theorized that the lack of menstrual cycle was flushing toxins into my blood and they were being released with the cystic acne, though he thought that it could just have easily damaged my liver or kidneys, but it had not. I was put on birth control pills, in effect chemically inducing puberty. (the added bonus was that this also stopped the migraines) I was also put on a new and experimental drug, Accutane. That shit was a godsend. (still a Christian in those days, me) But as a result, I had to have blood tests every week and so I looked like a damn junkie with holes in my arms constantly.
Six months of Accutane and I was again a relatively normal teenager with a LOT of scars, but not as many as I would have had without the Accutane. (and if you are familiar with that, it is a Vitamin A derivative, yes, that will figure in the story later)
I struggled with cystic acne all through school, basically. A few more times I took Accutane but never in the massive amounts I had first been given.
As a side note, when I was 16 or so, I got chicken pox, and again it was fucked up. I had the damn spots in my eyes and had to sit in a dark room for nearly a week and couldn’t read or anything. Not reading is like not breathing to me. THAT SUCKED. Not germane to the story, but one more example of fucked up.
Need I add that I had depressive tendencies?
My doctor, who was everyone in the immediate family’s doctor, diagnosed colitis somewhere around age 17. My mom and I had moved out of my step-father’s house and my doctor knew not only that, but that my step-father was a raging alcoholic. I think he knew that it was stress induced at that time. Though at that point I had been unable to eat hard yoked eggs for a while, so it could have been food induced colitis just as easily. (I didn’t lose the ability to eat scrambled eggs or omelets until I was nearly 30, the sensitivity to broccoli came around 24) I spent a lot of time in the school counselor’s office after my father died in a car wreck when I was 15, and then when my mom and step dad got back together. (And they still are together. I call him dad more often now than I did then) I am a third generation adult child of an alcoholic, so that puts my childhood/teen years into some interesting perspective. (I was diagnosed with clinical depression and seasonal affective disorder at 25) Around the time of the colitis I was also diagnosed with recurring labyrinthistis, inner ear infections of joy that make me fun on escalators and elevators. (really, take me on an elevator and I act drunk from the dizzy disorientation, it’s fun. Not.)
More interjection: It didn’t help that I was a sensitive artistic type. I started writing poetry and stories as soon as I could pick up a pencil. (my first published poem was in the school paper when I was ten) I was in drama and choir and on the speech team and my step father is an old school redneck with little understanding of these things, and I was in Gifted&Talented programmes in school, so I was also totally a bookwormy geek. (And I repeated third grade, another long story. I was deemed ‘not mature enough’ for 4th grade. I suspect because I didn’t like my teacher very much and hated math so refused to do it. Um. Stubborn. Yes. Plus, all my friends were a grade below me because my birthday was before the cutoff for school, just barely, and theirs were after. So yeah. Would love to shove my triple digit IQ in my 3rd grade teacher’s face, vindictive bitch that I am)
In my mid twenties I started having these painful swellings in my armpits. Really deep down inside were lumps that would swell and hurt and it sucked.
I went to my doctor, some new guy I didn’t know. (Incidentally, this was post-Unfortunate Incident and I was on anti-depressants and in therapy) He didn’t know what the fuck and put me on antibiotics. I am a perfect example of what happens when antibiotics are over prescribed. Also of note: it hurt like hell and I never once asked for pain meds. It actually never occurred to me. (I had a pinched nerve some years before and they put me on Percocet which gave me horrible violent rape nightmares so I never EVER asked for pain meds because of that. I can take Vicoden and Codeine and that is about all I ever trust. My mother has similar results with Percodan. Perc things just aren’t good for us, obviously!) He tried several antibiotics over about a six month period. I didn’t know better so I just took them, because I’m a dork. As a result I developed a sensitivity to anything ending in cin, Penicillin, Amoxicillin, Whateveracillin, all bad. Fever, chills, shakes, disorinetation, the whole enchilada of ugly. And a pain in the ass if I have infections.
He sent me to a surgeon, who flat out told me there was nothing he could do. I returned to my doctor, told him the surgeon wasn’t able to help and by this time the lump under my arm was so painful that I couldn’t lift my arm and it was actually visible. I told him that if he didn’t lance it or cut it open or just get it the hell out of me I’d use a razor blade and take care of it myself. Still didn’t ask for pain meds since it literally didn’t occur to me.
And now for another interesting aside. I had a friend at that time who had just finished nursing school. Unknown to me, one of her former classmates was subbing in the clinic that day. The doctor, out of the exam room, told my friend’s classmate that I was attention seeking, obviously, since I was in therapy. Um. Jackass. She thought he was full of shit but couldn’t tell me while she was employed by him. She was disturbed enough by this to tell our mutual friend, without using names since, you know, confidentiality. More on this later.
Apparently, he decided to humour me. He lanced the fucker. And oh my gods it was gross. He was also a little embarrassed since he thought it was nothing. After a LOT of yuck drained out it stopped pushing on the nerve or whatever and didn‘t hurt like it had, he dressed it and sent me away. I never went back to that doctor. I went to another town for a doctor, and in Wyoming, that is a total pain in the ass, there is a LOT of miles between towns. I did however, find a dermatologist out of the deal.
I had been suffering with this mysterious thing for a very long time. By the time I got to the derm, I was miserable and sad and freaked out. I had also started having migraines again. And my new doctor had started me on Accutane again and still on Bcpills. I had recognized the goo as the same kind of drainage from the cystic acne. But from lumps under my arms, that was new and horrible.
My new doctor became alarmed when I started having memory issues and the migraines increased. She sent me to a neurologist and ophthalmologist. I had started to show signs of intra(inter?)cranial hypertension because my optic nerves were swelling. The neurologist did more tests including an MRI (I almost fell asleep in the machine, the thumping was very soothing, the techs thought I was insane). He determined that I had Pseudotumor Cerebri and needed a lumbar puncture and to be taken OFF Accutane for the rest of eternity and put on whatever they give to high altitude sickness and glaucoma. I forget the name of it, but there’s a bottle in my medicine cabinet. The spinal tap was fun. I was drugged up and asked my neuro (A VERY handsome bearded bear of a hunk) if he could reactivate the LSD in my spinal column while he was digging around in there. Sadly, he allowed as how he couldn’t. But I did make him and the attending nurse laugh. I appear to be fun while drugged.
PTC is made worse by Vitamin A derivatives. (see, I said that would come back to haunt me) So added to the list of antibiotics I can’t take, add tetracycline and anything cycline and retinol named.
Now, at the time I was on a drug that increased the problem, but it is not at all clear if the Accutane I was on as a kid (that never gave me these problems back then) had caused it or if it was a condition that existed and just flared badly when the drug was reintroduced after not taking it for nearly a decade. And my doctors couldn’t say why it did this at all, since I had been fine with it as a kid. After several months of meds (and the three vials of fluid taken out of my spine) I was pronounced cured and sent on my way.
Then after all that, I finally go to the dermatologist. After telling her ALL this, and without even seeing more, she hits the nail on the head. I have Hidradenitis Suppurativa. A cousin illness to cystic acne. It seemed so obvious, after the fact. And as an added bonus, EVERYDAMNDRUG they prescribe for it, on the banned list.
If I take the stuff that stops the HS, it flares the PTC. I’m so screwed.
So I avoid stress or injury (which will flare the HS) and anything Vitamin A (which flares the PTC) and try not to eat the things the doctor said have a lot of Vitamin A, though really, it’s an excuse to avoid liver. I still eat spinach and carrots, just not every week.
Back to that earlier aside. I was relating all this to my friend, the nurse and she got this look on her face, sort of pale like. She told me about her friend who was subbing for that doctor and how he had told her he thought there was nothing wrong with me and that he gave me antibiotics to shut me up. Wow. Since she had figured out who her friend was talking about when I told her my version, it was a little weird, and the three of us got together and bitched about that doctor. Yes, I should have reported his sorry ass to some board somewhere, but I didn’t.
Time passes.
I am doing my best to be good and keep healthy, though working nights and being a fat smoking drinking American, well, mostly I just try to stay out of trouble. And then I start to have migraines again. With the added bonus of vertigo. One day I couldn’t leave my bed the vertigo was so bad. Thankfully, the bathroom was attached to my bedroom at that apartment, so crawling to the bathroom was doable.
I go to a whole new round of doctors, since by that time I had moved. Guess what? PTC isn’t cured, it’s just a remission. My new Neuro was appalled that I had just been sent off to the wild blue with no instructions. It had been several years though, and we had thought then that it was likely a drug interaction. Nope. The vertigo was a new and exciting symptom of the migraines and the PTC was ramping up. I was put back on the meds, but happily no lumbar puncture. The gastro issues had also increased and test after test weas inconclusive and those doctors could find no reason for the constant diarrhea and I was getting tired of living on mashed taters and Gatorade, though I still like them. (and still live on that when I’m sick, they are the only things that don’t make me have explosive diarrhea when I have a flare up)
In the meantime… I had ouchy patches of something on my elbows. And my shins. And my regular doctor couldn’t figure it out. Great. And then the middle finger of my left hand got so swollen for no reason at all that I was crying every time I used that hand. OMG was that painful. So off to the doctor I go. He gives me naproxen and sends me home. It didn’t help the finger, but stopped the colitis cold. Cool side effect I thought. When I got in to the derm finally, she took one look at ALL of it and said, in effect, congratulations, you have Psoriasis AND Psoriatic arthritis. Yay you. She got me topical meds and sent me to a rheumatologist. He was super fantastic and ALL full of win. Really, I have had so damn many Doctors of Suck and Fail that it is wonderful to find a good one. So he does a boatload of Xrays and tells me I have “rather more osteoarthritis for someone your age” in just about every place you can have it. And oh, yes, PsArth in hands. Oh yay. Not. So I go on Methotrexate and stop drinking. Damn, that sucked. A year and a half later, the Psoriasis is controlled and the PsArth is down to a level where I can make a fist again. And I had to change insurance companies and therefore change doctors and that sucked and so did the new doctor.
Now I’ve been off the cancer meds for the arthritis for about, well… about three years. (I love how everything they give me for everything is for some other illness, yuck)
I am therefore a noncompliant arthritis and psoriasis patient, since I ma not taking anything but topical stuff, which doesn’t work all the at great, really.
Last year I was using Burdock Tincture for the Psoriasis and wow! That worked. It all want away! And then… well.
My sister getting murdered kind of stressed me out, so I have been flaring pretty bad with the HS and P, NOT a fun combination. I know that the arthritis is increasing, but the side effects of the methotrexate are really worse (not to mention the can’t drink on it) so I will deal as long as I can. And now that I am starting to feel less stressed, try the burdock again and see if I can make that magic happen again and make the psoriasis go away again.
And really, I drink about once a month, I could give it up and insurance will cover the methotrexate, but dear gods, I just can't face it. So I will put up with it. Because I can.