Jamie’s Blog on Arthritis and Psoriasis

Before Enbrel, I was taking two Advil before bed every night, and waking up with hours of morning stiffness. Without the Advil, I couldn’t get out of bed.

I haven’t taken the Advil in three weeks, since I started Enbrel. I think my tummy is happy about that. My joint pain is all but gone, my morning stiffness has basically disappeared, and I am sleeping without pain for the first time in years.

I can also work out again.

This year, my 16th year of arthritis pain, my shoulders, hips and neck got involved.  The worst pain was the left hip and shoulder; I stopped being able to lift my arms away from my torso without pain.  I learned to shift my weight when walking so as to avoid pain in my left hip.  I never noticed swelling or heat from these joints.  My neck stiffness, which had always been a constant when trying to turn my head, had become so intense that people were routinely noticing that I could not turn my head.

I thought that I hurt my feet with bad shoes when I walked all around Europe in the summer in 1993.  Since then, I tried really hard to get shoes that made it so I didn’t have terrible pain all day.  Turns out that such shoes do not exist.  Between pronation, extra-wide feet, sausage toes and what is either repeated toe breaks or intense amounts of joint swelling, I have been limping for the first few hours of my day for about 6 years.

As a pianist, the finger pain really got my attention.  It started in my left index finger, at the knuckle where the finger attaches to the hand.  I had broken this knuckle as a boy, when I punched my brother in his knee (he was sitting cross-legged, and my hand shattered).  I lied to my parents about it (not cool to get hurt while punching one’s brother), and it went a long time before a doctor saw it.  It was x-rayed eventually and was found to have been broken and healed, I think. 

The finger pain was sharp, pulsated, and was accompanied by swelling.  The joint looked bad. 

Over the course of several years, the left thumb, the right thumb and the right index finger got involved.  The worst was the left thumb joint where the finger attaches to the hand.  It immediately swelled to twice its size, and hasn’t come back since.  

After about 10 years of pain in my left index finger, I grew a nodule on the knuckle.  That was proof to my doctors that something needed to be taken seriously.  It had to do with the joint tissue swelling up and out of the joint.  

It pissed me off that I had to have an externally visible, abnormal looking,kind of gross thing on my finger before I could get doctors to take my fingers, and the pain that they were in, seriously.

My medical history is getting long, so I am going to include symptoms that are relevant to arthritis and psoriasis.  I had neither as a child or young adult. When I was 20 years old, I experienced sharp pains in my lowest left rib, where the rib goes from bone to connective tissue.  The pain pulsated, the rib felt warm to the touch.  

In my early 20’s, I developed small amounts of eczema under my eyelids, which responded well to a topical cream that could go near your eyes.  I also had eczema on the glans, which was treated with Protopic.  Check out their weird website (Itchcraft? http://www.protopic.com). Several times I had hydrocortisone-type steroids in cream for prescribed for eczema, and they did not work as well as the Protopic for me.

I just started Enbrel for my condition. I was looking for blogs on Enbrel when I encountered ‘rheumatoid arthritis and me’ here on wordpress, and was struck by a few things.

First, I feel really badly for her. That case of RA sounds overwhelming. Second, I have had similarly amazing results with Enbrel. Third, I am skeptical that her blog isn’t written by Wyeth in their ghostwriting/new media department.

I can’t verify my lack-of-affiliation with Amgen/Wyeth. I can only say- read at your own risk. I’m offering this information in case someone finds it helpful, and also to help myself process my condition.

I am starting a blog about my experiences with psoriatic arthritis, and the doctors and medications I have tried. I am 36, have no family history of arthritis. I take medication for asthma and anxiety. Otherwise, I am healthy, have never been hospitalized or missed work for my condition.