My Arthritis

Hey Y'all!

I hope y'all have had a good Easter weekend and were able to celebrate in the ways you see fit! I know I had a wonderful time celebrating with my family and watching all the little ones do the annual Easter egg hunt we always have at my aunt's house! It makes me wish I was younger because I miss the Easter egg hunt. It was always so much fun!

This is not going to be a typical post that I like to do about my day or about beauty products or anything like that, but more of a post about awareness and just an update about my arthritis. I know that most of you probably don't care but it's been on my mind a lot lately and kind of weighing me down and I think just writing about it will maybe release some of that worry.

For those of you who don't already know, around the age of 22-23 I was having a lot of back trouble that I thought was just a side effect of working really hard in a factory. After lots of physical therapy and a $300 two month long stay at a chiropractor's office, I finally got approved to have a MRI done. I definitely never want to have another MRI done because I am extremely claustrophobic and it felt like I was in there for an hour. It was terrible. My results didn't come back for a couple of weeks and it was so scary because your mind automatically goes to the dark side. You think of every possible thing that could go wrong. You research, you look on Web MD, you ask people and questions and you eventually go crazy. You think of the c word. When someone in your family dies at a relatively young age, cancer is always in the back of your mind no matter how hard you try to get rid of it.

I remember the day that I got my results. I took my mom with me because I'm always really bad about remembering what the doctor told me and I wanted a second pair of ears there to help me understand what was going on, if anything at all. I was hoping that it was nothing and that I just have really bad pain tolerance and I was just being a baby. My ultimate goal was just to be told that I can't handle pain and I'm over weight and if I would loose the weight my back wouldn't hurt. Because that's what everyone else was always telling me. You're big, your back is going to hurt. You work in a factory, it's going to hurt, get over it. So, that's what I kept telling myself.

My doctor started going over my results talking about L4 or whatever. She was talking about all the bones at the very bottom of my spine near my tail bone; that's where it hurt the most so that's the area that they targeted me. She told me that one of my discs near the bottom of my spine was deteriorating. Well what does that mean? She said "You have arthritis." When she said that, I could have jumped for joy. Anything but the c word right? I thought to myself "wow, that's not bad at all." The thing is though is that I didn't understand really what it meant and what it entailed.

For those of you who don't know what it is, just like I had no idea when they told me that I had it, arthritis is basically joint pain or joint disease. There are over 100 types of arthritis, which is crazy, and mine is Degenerative which is the most common form. This means that the cartilage at the end of my bones is gone and my discs are rubbing together when I walk, run, lay down, pretty much do anything at all, and it causes swelling, which causes chronic pain. Sometimes you can see arthritis like when someone has it in their hands and it creates these nodules at their knuckles; most of the time though it can only be seen from an x-ray or an MRI.

The next thing I asked my doctor was "How do we get rid of it?". "You don't." she said. "Okay, well what kind of medicine do I need to take?" She replied with "You can't."

Here's the thing about being diagnosed with this at the age of 23. Most people don't get it until they're much older. When that happens, they're able to take a medicine that helps to alleviate much of that joint pain making life much more comfortable, with some added risks, such as heart attack. If I was to start taking arthritis medicine at the age of 23, my doctor told me that I would likely have a heart attack in my 30's. That hit me like a truck. That's when it set in that maybe this was more serious that I previously thought. There are plenty of treatment options out there for me to help with some of the pain but that's about it. There is no cure for arthritis.

How did I get it? We have no idea. The first thing my doctor asked me was if I had ever been in a traumatic accident like a car wreck or a bad fall or anything like that. Nope. I was in a car accident when I was 16 but it wasn't bad and I didn't even go to the hospital. Maybe it's from being on the heavier side most of my life or maybe working in the factory put a lot of strain on it, we just don't know. Either way, I have it, and now I have to figure out how to deal with it.

The only thing that I was prescribed was gabapentin and this wasn't even for my back! I don't really understand still what was going on but I couldn't sleep at night because I was having waves going through my legs to the point where they would continuously cramp up and it was so painful. I don't know if I had a pinched nerve or if it was from the arthritis but that's why I was prescribed the gabapentin. I was also taking magnesium and b12 every day to help with that as well. Other that that I could do physical therapy, the chiropractor, acupuncture, water aerobics and that's about it.

I have done physical therapy a total of three times now and I honestly don't feel like it helped me at all. The third time was the best though because at that point we actually knew why my back was hurting so some of the exercises weren't putting me in extreme pain. It never felt like it was getting any better though.

My life consisted of aleve, ibuprofen, heating pads, ice packs, massages from Michael, lots of rest and me having to quit my job for a little while. It was such a dark time in my life because I was in extreme pain every single day and all I could do was try to mask it. I was always feeling so sorry for myself. Never wanting to go anywhere or do anything because I felt like I physically couldn't.

Flash forward to now and I can't believe the difference in pain. I took the gabapentin for about six months. I only took it until my legs started to calm down because I didn't want to have to rely on a pill to sleep. I've seen friends and people I love get addicted to pills and I didn't want to be one of those people. I know how hard it is to come off of them. I continue to take the magnesium and b12 and I put my heating pad underneath my calves every single night for 20 minutes to prevent the cramping and it works great. I really only ever take the Aleve or ibuprofen when I'm on my period because my back pain is horrendous those first three days. I exercise regularly now, some weeks more than others, and it has really helped the pain.

I think though that a lot of it for me has been a mental struggle. Once I stopped feeling sorry for myself and deciding that I didn't want to live like this, all cooped up in my bed and couch, that's when the pain really started to subside. I still have really bad days though. The first three days of my period are always a nightmare. If it's freezing cold outside my back aches and it likes to lock up. If I work an eight hour shift where I'm on my feet all day and then I come home and sit down, it's really hard to get back up because my back gets so stiff it's incredibly hard to move. I still use my ice packs and heat pads on the daily. I can't wear high heels and I can't lay down on the floor flat on my back but damn I seriously feel so much better.

No matter whether you have anxiety or depression or MS or arthritis or any kind of disease that you can't physically see and you're not continuously hospitalized, people will always remind you that it could be worse. "Well, at least it's not this. Well, thank god you don't have this disease. Oh, that's nothing. That's not that bad." Fuck them. Nobody but you really knows what you're going through and you really have to remember that. You HAVE to take care of yourself and do what YOU need to do to get better. Obviously someone with cancer who has to have multiple surgeries and can't leave a hospital bed is doing pretty badly and that's terrible, but that doesn't mean that we don't have a hard time getting out of our own beds and doing daily activities just like them. For the absolute longest time I felt so shitty. I felt so shitty for feeling the way I did because I had it ingrained in my brain that someone else out there had it worse and there was no excuse for me to feel this way and that's just terrible. I should have never felt that way because I have a disease that causes chronic pain and I should have focused on getting better instead of just moving on.

People like to be doctors and tell you what they think is best, but just remember, only YOU, and your actual doctor, knows what's best. Tune them out, ignore them, walk away. Do what you have to do to not get into that mindset because it will set you so far back.

Now that I'm exercising and eating a LITTLE better ;) the pain is different. It's not throbbing or sharp. It's still there, and it will always be there, but it's tolerable now. The only thing that really scares me now though is that I think it's in my hips. I have not had an MRI to confirm this suspicion, but lately my hips are constantly popping and I have the same kind of pain in my hips that I do in my back. This really scares me because me and Michael really want to have children and I know that carrying a child and delivery is going to be so difficult, more so than it already is! My doctor told me that I'll have a normal pregnancy it will just be extremely painful. We don't have any idea how quickly my arthritis will progress and because of that, me and Michael have went back and forth so many times on having children now or waiting and risking it. And by risk we mean, adopting. And please, do not take that the wrong way. People who adopt are angels and people who have their own kids are also angels. We just really want to try to conceive our own child but we're so worried about my back and hips and it's all just so scary. We have come to a decision on our child situation but that's something that I'm going to keep private between the two of us, because knowing us, it could change again haha.

Please know that I didn't write this post for anyone to feel sorry for me. I don't feel sorry for myself anymore and I don't expect anyone else to. I really just want to make people aware of the situation because there have been plenty of times where I've been invited to do things and I just can't physically do them. For the most part though, all of my family and friends have been so supportive through all of this. Brittany and Alisha NEVER made me feel bad for not being able to get out of bed when we had plans. They always told me to rest and get better and you have no idea how much I appreciate that because I have in fact had people tell me it's not that bad and I'm overreacting. Michael has been so great too. He would always ask if I needed anything, get my heating pad or ice pack for me, pretty much go to the ends of the earth getting me anything at all. He supported us fully when I quit my job because he knew I needed to rest. He worked and still does work so hard for us and I could never repay him. He is the absolute best! My mom has been my rock through all of this. She was there at the doctor with me when they told me, she's listened to me complain and cry about the pain over the last couple of years and she's always done everything she can to soothe me. She's never once made me feel like I was bothering her. I love her so much and this would have been so much harder without her. I love all my family and friends because they've really helped me so much.

I just have to go day by day. Sometimes I wake up and feel like I could run two miles and others I don't know how I'm going to get anything done because the pain is so bad. That's okay though because I have more great days now than bad days and I never thought it would get to this point. I'm so happy that I'm in such a good place right now and I hope it stays this way for a very long time.

Thank you so much for reading this if you've made it this far. Please, be kind and patient with everyone that you meet. You never know if they're hurting physically or mentally and you smiling at them or holding a door open for them could be the difference between a good day and a very very bad one. Just some food for thought. I hope y'all have a good week!

Bye Y'all!!