New Member Introduction

[Guest guest]

Hello all -

I just joined the list and thought I'd say hi. My name is and I live in

Alaska. I was diagnosed with RA in February after flaring up in January.

Luckily (?) I had a good idea of what it might be as my Mother also has RA, so I

went to the doctor and specifically asked for testing for this disease and

therefore was diagnosed relatively quickly.

After doing a lot of research, I chose my course of action. I know that kind of

sounds funny, but I learned through my Father's fight with cancer that we really

have to be proactive in our own treatments much of the time. We have no

rheumatologists in this area and so I was going through my regular doctor. She

has been very good with me and willing to work with the choices I'm making. I

started on Methotrexate and Plaquenil but told the doctor I wanted to try the

antibiotic therapy. She looked into it, found that patients of hers who had

gone out to the Mayo Clinic for treatment options had been prescribed

antibiotics, and so she wrote me a prescription and let me go with it.

I've been on Doxycycline since February. Initially I was on 100mg twice a day

and found that it was too much. I went into a Herxheimer reaction and had a lot

of trouble getting through it. The good thing is that I knew it was having some

effect or I wouldn't be herxing. I also chose to stay on the Plaquenil to try

to avoid joint damage, but I did drop the Methotrexate. I was also on pain meds

(Indocin and Oxycodone).

Then in April, after having a very rough winter, I decided to try Prednisone.

It was amazing how quickly I had my (almost) normal life back. I started at

40mg, but quickly tapered down (dropping 10mg every five days until I was at

10mg per day). I was able to go off of the Indocin and Oxycodone. Now I'm at

10mg Prednisone every other day, and still on the Doxycycline and Plaquenil -

but I rarely have to take any pain meds other than Advil.

With the recent rainy weather we've been having, I'm flaring up some. My hands

get it especially (visible swelling in the joints, and a big lump swells up on

the back of my left hand). My knees and feet hurt too, and sometimes shoulders

and elbows. It's always odd how it can travel around from joint to joint - and

sometimes be on the right, sometimes on the left, sometimes both! Very strange

disease we have here. I have found that if I can avoid sugar (which I

admittedly have a hard time doing) and drink lots of water (instead of the diet

pepsi that I love) I do much better. So much of the treatment is up to us, if

we can get ourselves to take care of it. I also admit I don't get enough

exercise, but when I'm sore it's hard to get up and do things at times! I do

work daily (at a fishing lodge, so right now it's busy) and that's good for me

physically and mentally.

I'm pretty devoted to the idea of the antibiotic protocol. It takes longer to

see results, but the concept behind it just fits with my thoughts and my

personality. I'm only 46 and so I'm looking at probably 30 years or more on

medications. If I can deal with this with a low-dose of antibiotics and fewer

of the more " serious " drugs, I think I'll be better off down the years. At

least that's my reasoning!

Anyway, just wanted to say hello and introduce myself. I'm also interested in

what people do for exercise when they're sore. Do any of you have a particular

exercise regimen that you can manage to do even when your knees and feet are

sore?