Happy disability pride month
Not many days left but it's not over yet.
Let's talk about my rheumatoid arthritis.
What is it? Well it's a hereditary disease that causes inflammation, swelling and pain in the joints.
Years back it would only effect my hands, my pinky would shift like it was out of place, my knuckles felt sore for no reason, my hands were a little difficult to use at times. Over the years its grown.
It's now in my knees, elbows, and likely already in the rest of my joints but the worst are always hands and knees during flare ups.
I manage it well enough most days with compression wear, braces, creams and sometimes medication like tylenol and ibuprofen. Not to mention a hot shower or a warm bath with Epsom salts. And of course the occasional hemp product that wont trigger any skin reaction as well as cbd(& sometimes thc). These things help manage my pain in general with the other things I have in addition to arthritis.
Things that tend to trigger a flare up are the cold air/being cold, holding cold beverages/items too long, overdoing movement with my body, not doing enough stretches and movements and letting my body go stiff, and even migraines.
Flare ups dont always happen because of a trigger though, sometimes it just is a bad day for my joints.
I got this from my moms side of the family, she has osteoarthritis, my nana has rheumatoid, great grandma had osteo so on and so forth. Not the worst gift either of my parents gave me to be honest but not the greatest thing to inherit either.
Anything that's known to take down swelling can help, fighting inflammation in the joints is tough, but theres cure. It's already begun to effect the look of my hands, and will continue to do so. Theres treatment, especially known to be highly manageable and greatly effective if caught early but not anything that can completely get rid of it.
I wouldnt consider to have caught this early enough, being 20 when my mom finally connected the dots with me (to my memory). I would have liked to have had it diagnosed way earlier, but I cant remember when the pain started since it feels like I've always had it since day 1 and my memory of the past is awful thanks to amnesia.
Everytime I talk about arthritis I'm always anticipating someone saying I'm too young to have it. Theres no age requirement for developing it. Arthritis might seem like a thing for only those 50 and over to have, it might be most commonly represented by the grandma on tv, but anyone can have it, young folk especially.
And no cracking your knuckles and shaking them out doesnt give you arthritis, that's a myth your teachers made up in elementary to stop the cracking noises they found disgusting (and in my case, also to stop the stimming they found disruptive. Jokes on them I got arthritis anyway and still do it)
Any type of arthritis can be developed as early as infancy. Rheumatoid is an autoimmune type that's typically diagnosed between ages 25-40 and after, I suppose you could say I got young-onset RA.
Arthritis and fibromyalgia can be similar and overlap when it comes to the areas of pain, fibromyalgia may even be a misdiagnosis for arthritis or cause doctors to overlook it and some people can absolutely have both.
I highly suspect I have both, i have a lot of pain not fully explained and that would be the last piece of the puzzle for me if i ever got a fibromyalgia diagnosis. Some of it's actually caused by the defect in ny spine and how it effected by bodys developmental growth, some of its arthritis, some of its other things. But knowing where it comes from doesnt entirely change much now, I have had my tricks and skills for managing my pain for several years even before I knew about the arthritis and spine defect. And a lot of my conditions, if not all of them, dont have cures or arent in a state for a cure.
Eventually, maybe another decade or further down the line, my arthritis is going to only get worse and I'll probably develop more issues with my body and movement because of it, it's a slow thing but I'm not too worried about it. I have other things that would probably take out my mobility faster than the arthritis that I'll actually worry about.
For some, arthritis is a painful nuisance, for others it's a large concern in their life. The older you get though, the more used to it you are and the more tolerable it can be, at least until it's not. I think I'm the former, it's not my worst problem, and right now it's a manageable tolerable annoyance.
It makes my cane difficult to use, it makes holding things and putting pressure into a grip very hard to do on the worst days, it makes me wanna stay put and or shove my hands in a fire sometimes, but I can still function.
I hate it like pest I dont care to get rid of because its basically a roommate and it's just gonna come back if I try. Sometimes it's a bitch, sometimes it's nice to me.
Its something I can live with. And something I do live with. Even when it turns up the difficulty settings.
gummygunk
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turnnoffyourmind
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