All posts tagged: RA team members

Four years with RA

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It was four years this month that I was officially diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis. Learning to accept my situation and learning to manage my disease was not easy. Pain is constant. It just varies in intensity. Fatigue is overwhelming and was constant the first few years. The RA process of medication trial and error was discouraging. Medication side effects were hard to tolerate. Underneath it all, the knowledge of living with a progressive disease was disconcerting. Add to the mix, I was diagnosed with stage three thyroid cancer and breast cancer the same year that I was diagnosed with the RA. Both included surgery and radiation treatment. Yet here I am four years later. I am still struggling but I am surviving and maybe thriving. I wake in pain. I go to bed in pain. Pain is discouraging and even depressing. Many of my joints are affected by RA. Fingers, toes, feet and hands, elbows, wrists, shoulders and jaw. So, I am blanketed in pain. I take meloxicam and methylprednisolone for inflammation. I take gabapentin …

Massage and RA

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Garrett is amazing.  He is tall and lanky. Arty. Welcoming. He is a student at the ABQ School of Massage and he gave me a massage at their free cancer clinic. I remember my first experience. Coming out of the massage room, I felt renewed. Massage therapy started as a new adventure for me.  My RA needed help.  So did I.    Massage therapy seemed like a good thing to try. I made the appointment. After the first massage,  I received an email from Garrett asking if I would be the subject of his case study on Rheumatoid Arthritis. I would receive six free massages. He would ask me questions about my RA.  Of course, I said yes.  I needed another tool in my RA toolbox. I am a lucky woman.  My adventure continues. Today was my 5th massage. I follow the routine of each massage. I check off my choices on Garrett’s  before pain scale sheet. Next I undress in the massage room and slide under the sheet and blanket.  Lights are low.  A quiet space.  …

The challenge of Feet

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My rheumatologist sent me to a podiatrist, a foot doctor.                 Charming man. Once a client of mine.        X-rays were ordered, the podiatrist way. Standing. Weight bearing. Three views each.  For the third view I climbed steps  and was x-rayed  at foot level.   A  much better test than the standard foot  x-rays. Results: persistent degenerative changes with in the feet bilaterally. I admit that this was expected. What happens next?  My doc said surgery is not the answer.  As my feet get worse he feels steroid injections would be helpful. Now it is important that I wear shoes that fit  well and offer good support.  I should also wear special inserts (Motion Control performance insoles by Prothotics). I got the inserts first.  They are so much better than anything you will find at Target or Walmart. They have support for feet in areas that are thinning in RA. He suggested our New Balance store or REI.  New Balance was closer. They fitted the inserts and fitted …