Your PA Intro

[Guest guest]

Hi Kim!

I was reading your intro on the PA list and wanted to share with you my

experiences with this PA stuff. Like you, it appeared when I was still

quite young (23 in my case), right after I moved out of college and to a

new town to start a job.

I have a theory that, if we're predisposed to PA, certain life-changing

events can kick off this disease and get the ball rolling. (It's still a

mystery how to stop that ball!) It's been 12 years now and I feel like I've

slowly deteriorated also...what started as a stiff swollen finger, migrated

to and then spread to include all fingers, ankles, wrists, balls of feet,

sometimes hips and as of last year, knees.

I was actually diagnosed almost immediately (found a GP who knew enough to

refer me to an RD who was familiar with PA, saw my mild scalp P, blood test

showed HLA-B27 positive and pronounced PA and put me on NSAIDS--which

worked for a few years). I then self medicated with ibuprofen myself for

several years in between treatments with 2nd line meds like Methotrexate,

Gold, etc which never did ANYthing for me. I tried Arava last year with no

results either...I'm using Vioxx now with some success. What I found,

though, is that most NSAIDS tend to lose their effect anywhere from 6

months to 1 year after starting them, and I've always had to switch around.

Fortunately, even after 12 years my joints (according to xrays) show almost

no damage at all, but I have almost constant inflammation in many places

and can rarely make a closed fist.

The most important thing you can do is find a good RD who will verify that

your joints are not deteriorating, and regularly monitor you for changes.

Once you establish that, you have many more options, including dietary

changes, and a wide variety of less toxic drugs (NSAIDS or even

alternative therapies) to choose from. You never know what might work for

you. Myself, I may try Enbrel before the end of the year, only because I'm

tired of having new spots of inflammation crop up every year, and no other

treattments (inlcuding homeopathy, accupuncture, etc etc) have helped me at

all (but they help others).

Fatigue can be a problem cause you. body is constantly spending energy

fighting what it mistakenly thinks is an infection of some sort. Try to

stay active though!

Well, welcome to the list!