Pollyanna Penguin’s RA Blog
This is a blog about me, my recently diagnosed rheumatoid arthritis and my struggles to stay positive about it!I hope the RA isn’t creaping back
I’ve had several virtually pain and stiffness free weeks now – fantastic! But for the last few days I’ve woken up just sliiiiiiightly stiff, and had little bits and pieces of rheumatoid arthritis pain in the evenings and at night … certainly not a flare, not even a fizzle, but just a bit worrying.
I have my six-monthly hospital appiontment at the end of next month and I was joking with my physio the other day that everything would probably jog along very nicely, with just the odd twinge and few minutes of stiffness, until the day after my hospital appointment,when I’d get a flare.
I hope it was a joke … especially as my hospital appointment is 23 December!
With friends like these …
I just had coffee with my friend Steph. Well, there are some advantages of being self-employed, and one is that when it’s quiet you can have coffee with your friends, until the panic sets in and you realise you need the work in order to pay the bills!
I told her about my giant slug issue and she said, ‘Well I would say, “No, no penguin, you don’t look anything like a giant slug,” but you probably wouldn’t believe me, so I won’t bother.’
I told her that actually she was very welcome to say that, so she did … but it wasn’t awfully convincing!! Well,I did say them as knew me might say it was too late to worry about it!
In danger of turning into a giant slug
Them as know me might say it’s too late to start worrying about that now, but I’m getting even less exercise than usual at the moment because I feel OK until I start coughing, and I don’t tend to start coughing (much anyway) until I move. A few times lately I’ve been OK at work and then gone for a walk at lunchtime, coughed and spluttered my way around town (I could be blamed for being the disease vector for all the colds in this part of Norfolk at this rate), and felt absolutely lousy by the time I got back, all of ten minutes or so later. Exercise is supposed to make you feel GOOD! I’m getting really fed up with this!
It’s not helped by the fact that poor hubby has still got a cough too, much worse than mine, and we tend to set each other off – great fun in the middle of the night!
My (Super) Hero
Picture the scene: it’s three in the morning and I’m in pain and wide awake. Tim Piggot-Smith has failed me – for once even his dulcet tones reading David Starkey’s Monarchy: The Beginnings haven’t lulled me to sleep. Neither has a podcast of a lecture from the wonderful Dr. Stuart Lee on Anglo-Saxon History – my other failsafe. I’m at my wit’s end.
Suddenly there’s a crash, a bound, and a superhero comes flying through the bedroom window and lands on the bed with an enormous thump. Yes, it’s The Grey Shadow, feline super-hero extraordinaire, to the rescue. A lick, a purr and I’m already feeling better.
Soon the gentle sound of purring has done the trick and I’m fast asleep.
I wake up at around 5:30 and The Grey Shadow has mysteriously disappeared. My ankle’s in agony. Why? Ah yes – Enormous Cat is fast asleep on top of it. I wonder where The Grey Shadow went? He would have been far too considerate to sleep on my ankle.
Thanks to Wren at The Rheuma Blog for reminding me about this incident with her post on wee beasties! What would we do without them? I’d far rather put up with the discomfort of the occasional sore ankle than not have these nocturnal visits from my superhero at all!
Enormous Cat
Three Golden Rules for Potential GPs
1. Don’t become a GP if you have the personality of a lettuce.
2. Remember that it’s probably going to get pretty boring by Thursday afternoon – loads and loads of six-minute appointments seeing snotty little people who should have stayed at home – but it’s part of YOUR JOB NOT TO SHOW HOW BORED YOU ARE!
3. When examining a patient it might be helpful to say things like ‘I’m just going to feel your neck for glands’. Otherwise you may one day find yourself pinned to the wall at the back of the surgery by an angry young man who thought you were trying to strangle him.
Yes, you guessed it – I just saw a GP I didn’t really take to. And, as you might also have guessed, I’ve gone down with a stonking cold, probably courtesy of hubby, although mine is NOT flu. (No, I’m not suggesting he’s had ‘man flu’ – he had a temperature of 102 for two days; but I haven’t had a temperature at all.) It went with an equally stonking sore throat. When I looked in the mirror (as you do … don’t you? Well I do), I could see little red wheals right across my throat. When the GP looked he said he couldn’t see anything. Hmm, that’ll be because my tongue was in the way I expect. However, as he’d already decided to give me antibiotics given the fact I was on MTX for the R.A., and as we had had an instant personality clash and I wanted to get out of there a.s.a.p. I didn’t push the point.
So – all the usual drugs plus paracetamol, sudafed, antibiotics (third lot in a month I think). I’m heartily sick of all these drugs … but then again, the MTX is WORKING, so who am I to complain?
Seasonal flu jabs … or seasonal or unseasonal flu?
Today Mum and I had our seasonal flu jabs. Because hubby isn’t entitled to one on the NHS he got one privately last Friday. ‘You might get some mild flu-like symptoms two to three days after the jab,’ he was told.
Last night (for anyone having trouble counting, that would be four days after the jab ) he started to cough and a slight sore throat. He went to work today, came back ‘freezing cold’ and shivering, had a bath and went to bed. I just took his temperature – 102.
Now the question is does that constitute mild flu-like symptoms, or are we talking flu, or swine flu or what? I don’t know, but what I do know is that if Mum and I come down with similar ‘mild flu-like symptoms’ on Saturday she’s not going to be best pleased … it’s her birthday!
5-HTP update – hmm, not working so well now
I don’t know if the 5-HTP (which I’ve been taking for a while to help me sleep, as sleep (or lack of it) seems to be a probable cause for fibromyalgia) becomes less effective after a certain amount of time, but I’ve just recently stopped finding it very effective. My bro takes it sometimes too and he reckons that if he takes it for a while he becomes kind of desensitized to it, so perhaps it’s that.
It was fantastically helpful for a couple of months, but then I started to find that if I woke up, even if it was only an hour or two after falling asleep on taking the tablet, I couldn’t get back to sleep again.
Now the flipping hot flushes have started again, I’m waking up about once an hour and hot flushing BIG TIME. Of course that makes me feel utterly disgusting and I usually have to get up for a bit, after which I’m wide awake for a few minutes. Only a few minutes doesn’t sound so bad, does it … until you realise that this is happening six times a night or so.
Surprise, surprise – the fibro is coming back. Off to see my lovely cake-recommending physio this afternoon so that will help, but I fear I’m going to have to try the meds that the consultant recommended months ago but that I’ve been avoiding as the side effects include weight gain. (I know, I know, my favourite lecture is about how you mustn’t assume you’ll get all the side effects going, but I know when it comes to me and weight gain I’m doooooomed!)
Any advice on getting rid of the flushes (or packets of roasted soya beans in the post, and instructions on the uses thereof, Maggie, if you’re reading this) would be much appreciated!!
Some good news!
The hot flushes are back with a vengeance! As anyone who’s ever had them, or has a partner who’s ever had them, will know,that is NOT the good news.
The good news is that although I’m quite convinced from previous fluctuations between hot flushes and no hot flushes, RA pain and no RA pain, that the two are correlated – for me, hot flushes usually means more RA pain and stiffness – this time the RA symptoms remain mild to non-existent. Further indication that the MTX is doing what it’s supposed to be doing.
Even the fatigue has reduced – I’ve had a really busy week – busy at work, making some bits and bobs for a charity stall run by our local sewing group, preparing for my mum’s 70th birthday (the house is full of cake, icing stuff, presents, wrapping etc.) – I had a ‘ladies who lunch’ and shopping trip on Saturday involving 50 minute drive each way to Bury St. Edmunds, and I managed the WHOLE weekend without a day-time nap.
I very nearly succumbed, but just managed not too. I hoped that would guarantee a good night’s sleep last night, but thanks to the hot flushes/night sweats, it didn’t. Oh well … can’t have everything. At least the RA is behaving itself!
World Arthritis Day – Let’s Work Together!
It’s World Arthritis Day and this year’s theme is ‘Let’s Work Together!’ It’s got me thinking about how lucky I am to still be in work considering I’ve got this dratted disease/illness/condition, whatever you want to call it.
I’m very grateful that I can still work, in spite of the R.A. It’s been a difficult road to travel, but I feel not nearly so difficult as for those in employment. Yes, it’s “mild R.A.” but when my symptoms are bad it doesn’t feel mild to me! As a self-employed person I don’t have to worry about breaking the news to the boss, explaining why I can’t play golf with the company, or put up with silly comments or lack of understanding from colleagues. I only have one colleague and she’s very understanding … if she’s not then she does a good job of hiding it, since I’m her boss (at least officially – we suffer from role reversal now and then).
There has been some research, sited in the excellent book on Living a Full Life With Rheumatoid Arthritis by Jasmine Jenkins (a delightful lady whom I had the pleasure to meet in Barcelona – Gosh – who’d have thought you could name-drop in the world of rheumatoid arthritis?), that suggests that self-employed people are likely to remain in work longer than those who are employed. If I remember rightly, since I can’t lay my hands on the book right now, it was suggested that this is due to difficulties with employers. On a bad day I wonder if it’s more to do with desperation – there’s no going off sick and still being paid by the company! On a normal day though I’m grateful that I can take small amounts of time off here and there to cope with a flare, and that I have been able to cut my hours back to normal full-time hours from slightly in sane morning and evening and weekend hours that I used to work, without having to justify myself to anyone except myself.
It would be good if World Arthritis Day, and indeed the My Day for RA site, brought some real understanding of rheumatoid arthritis to those who don’t have it but who have friends, family or colleagues who do, to lighten the load of those people in employment who have to put up with R.A. on top of all the usual frustrations of a job!
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