Happy Friday all - PsA and Ps here

Kimpossible

Happy Friday everyone

I felt like starting this post off as a happy one, since recently times have not been so for myself.

I have suffered with psoriasis my whole life (I'm now 34), and 9 years ago was diagnosed with Psoriatic Arthritis. I knew of the disease and was never taken seriously by doctors due to my age and fitness activities (I used to run, which was originally blamed for my joint problems). However being sent to a specialist was the real turning point.

I have tried 3 DMARDS in the past, and am now on csimzia. Due to recent events this seemed to have stopped working. As an active woman with a fairly hectic full time job, a husband who I'd like to have a child with and a carer for my father, this is the cherry on top

I would like to know if anyone has tried alternative therapies (yoga or meditation), or if they have tried working with a therapist? And if this has worked for them?

I feel that stress is the major factor in my case and pills/potions just don't cut it anymore.

Namaste (if that's how you say it )

[Deleted User]

Hi kimpossible welcome to the forum love the way you started your blog, very positive, however you have been through a lot, this forum is very friendly and understanding and will try and help in any way to make you feel part of the forum and chat about arthritis everyone on this forum has Arthritis of some kind so just choose a forum and get started Living with Arthritis and Chit Chat being the most popular
All the best Christine

dreamdaisy

Hello, I have PsA but without much psoriasis (having been born with eczema and developing asthma aged seven this development was no great surprise). I began aged 37 and am now 59, I also have OA and fibromyalgia. My mother's side of the family donated the eczema and asthma, Pa's the psoriasis; my parents were fortunate to miss all of it. As more became known about genetics I made the deliberate decision not to have children and do not regret it for one moment, you don't miss what you have never have but I do wonder from time to time what the mythical land of Health is like: I know it doesn't prepare you for any setbacks.

I began back in 1997 but was not accurately diagnosed until 2006, I began meds in 2002 but that was all too little too late hence, I suspect, the OA. That is having a field day at the moment with the cold weather so life is pretty challenging but am still managing to exercise and do nice things. I am now an orphan, happily married and we moved house to make my physical life easier. On the whole things are pretty good, the PsA is well-controlled with the meds but they do nothing to reduce pain and never have. The OA is, to some extent, controllable, but until I learn how to manage the weather it can still have its own way.

I hope you find the forum to be of interest, it's more an information resource now but we all get it because we've all got it. I wish you well. DD

stickywicket

Hello and welcome from me too. Mine's RA but the meds are all the same. I'm sorry yours haven't worked for you. I get by quite well on a combination of methotrexate and hydroxychloroquine. Have you ever done two or three DMARDS together? It's quite normal and usually happens before we're offered biologics such as cimzia.

How are your bloods now? Unfortunately for us, if the blood results show little disease activity then they are working regardless of our pain levels, and pain must just be dealt with using the misnamed 'painkillers'.

I can see you're leading a very busy, stressful life and I'm sure you're horribly aware that arthritis thrives on stress. Plus you're planning that neverending, most stressful activity of all – having a child I did it twice. I certainly don't regret it but the first thing I learnt was that things have to go. We can't live our lives as if we don't have arthritis, fitting it in as we can. We have to accept that we do have arthritis and, unless we want it to take us over completely, we must constantly rearrange our lives to fit in with that. If we accept this we can hang on to the important bits while letting go of the less important ones. But prioritising is absolutely essential.

Yoga and meditation can be useful tools but, given that our diseases are caused by our overactive immune systems, they can never replace the immuno-suppresant meds as our main tool and first line of defence against its progression.