JUST KIDDING!!! (It was funny though, huh? Just a little??
My story just isn't that interesting. I was trying to think back and as far as I can remember I've always been tired. In the 3rd grade I thought I had broken my left foot, but after xrays and stuff it was diagnosed as torn ligaments. I had mono senior year. Um, when I was 19, my left leg swelled up and I couldn't bend it at the knee. After numerous tests they never really figured out what was wrong with me and it was gone in a couple of days. In 2005 I broke my thumb on my right hand. Then had unexplained pain in the left. Broke the right hand again. More swelling and then came the pain. I guess that's it. I was diagnosed with tendonitis in 2005 after I kept having all the pains and stuff. I guess I went into remission while I was pregnant. Had the mother of all flares about 2 weeks after the baby was born and then I was dxed with RA. Sometimes I wonder if I had JRA, cause I had weird pains and fatigue for a while. Who knows though... See. The stripper story was so much more intriguing. Hehe. Hope ya'll are having a great night!!
Can't think of a thing. I was always very healthy.I agree that stress may be a trigger. For me it was very busy at work - longer hours, took an online class and my son was getting married. It was a very hectic few months and I kept having periodic swelling and pain in various joints.
My feet were the worst - none of my shoes fit and I was worried I wouldn't be able to find comfortable shoes for the wedding. Luckily, I found some great flats that were very comfortable and I was able to dance all night.
CathyMN
STRESS!!
My favorite aunt died, thought my sister was dead in Hurricane Katrina, and hit a deer and totalled out my van on the way home to console my mom about my sister. Woke up next morning with stiff, swollen, red, lumpy thumb and finger.
The real stress started when mom was supposed to go home the day the hurricane hit and couldn't and ended up staying for over 2 months. Sister ended up being ok. Cops mis-identified a body and called family. Took her ten days to make a drive to IL that should have taken about 12 hours. Had a hell of a time sending money and she couldn't get the gas. They had rations. Thank God for a man at a rest stop that gave them enough gas to make it to Jackson MS>!!
My PA was bought on by trauma from an asthma attack and induced coma,then PTSD.
I was always healthy and physically active. I had a hysterectomy for fibroids and 3 months later I got RA. I went to bed one night healthy and woke up the next morning with grossly swollen painful hands. Got my diagnosis one week later. I've always wondered if the hysterectomy had anything to do with it. Even though I had no external symptoms maybe it (RA) was attacking my uterus and that when it was removed, it released something into my bloodstream that started attacking my joints.
I always thought it was pneumonia I had 4 months before my RA started. I'm not really sure though. About a years or so before that, I had bad tendonitis in my elbow. It just wouldn't heal. I even went through two Grafton procedures. Nothing. It did finally heal on it's own. I wonder now if it wasn't the RA.
Wow...let me see. The year prior to the onset for me was total hell...
Started having some numbness in my right arm (fingers, wrist, elbow,
etc...). Became very iritating in February. Went to PCP in March about
it. He wanted to schedule an carpel tunnel testing and then pinch nerve
test. Said after that he would schedule MRI. A few days later while
waiting at home for these tests to be scheduled I had a really bad pain
in the back of my neck. Called PCP's office, he was off. Went and saw
his partner. He said, "you need an MRI now and sent me that afternoon.
I had a 7mm bulge between C6-7. Had surgery 3 days later. That was the
beginning of April.
On the day My husband brought me home from the hospital, our older son
closed the Envoy hatch on our 2 yr old's arm and broke it.
In July, Grandmother (who raised me fractured her back) I took care of
her at home and at the hospital until we lost her in the beginning of
October. It was a very hard Thanksgiving and Christmas. Physically, my
neck was aching a lot. I thought it should have eased up a little by
now. Started getting worse in January and began feeling like I was
coming down with the flu...finally went to PCP in March, then was dxd
Sero-negative by RD in April.
It sounds like stress following an assault on one's physical condition. Anything from exhaustion to asthma attacks to major surgery. When your defenses are down, and you are also under major stress, then RA finds its opening.
I can't think of anything particular that triggered my RA. I was just sitting at my computer one day, when I noticed that my right shoulder was aching. Six hours later it was hurting worse than anything I'd ever experienced in my life. The next day everything else started hurting, and within a couple of weeks I could barely walk or dress myself.
My Dad had RA, as does my sister, and our symptoms started exactly the same way, with excruciating pain in the right shoulder. I'm pretty sure that in my case, RA is hereditary.
I got pains in both thumb base joints when I had a nasty chest infection which seemed a bit odd. Nothing more for about 10 years though, then whizzing round the joints in turn in 05 but nothing sygnificant set this lot off.
Mine's easy. To give it to you chronologically, just after I turned 30, I suffered from 6 strep throats in 6 months. Just before they were ready to yank my tonsils, it stopped. But that's when the fibro started.
Six years later, my appendix burst. The first hospital stay took 9 days and 3 major antibiotics to get the infection under control. The second hospital stay took 4 days of recovery after they surgically (laparascopically) removed the remaining necrotic tissue that once was my appendix. Right after that I started getting pain and numbness in my hands, as well as the morning stiffness.
I remember sitting in my rheumy's office a couple months later, looking at all the brochures for Enbrel and the like, thinking I wish I had RA instead of Fibro because at least they have meds for it. Ha ha ha. Joke's on me twice over because I never thought I could have both, and I never thought it would be so hard to find a drug that actually works.
Well If stress and illness causes RA it's no wonder I got it when I was a kid. I think I was the most stressed out kid EVER. I Cried everyday before school, always had anxiety.
I had major jaw surgery, but I think that was caused by the RA. I have had kidney stones...always sick. You name it I have had it.
It seems like every major event in my life is when the RA springs back up. It started again when I went to college. Just a bit though....
Now, I have been in a flare since September. I thought it was due to the stresses of getting married and moving 6 hours away from home and starting a new job. (Teaching is stressfull on it's own. I have 9 Grades to prep for and they asked me to coach cheerleading! I am not a cheerleader)
But on the other thread we have been talking about the HPV vaccine. I got my last one in Sept when all of this started happening so I am thinking that may have caused this big flare, the worst I have ever had.
I see though that their are many of us who cannot associate the onset of RA with any illness or stressful period of time. So could those things that seem to be triggers just be coincidences, but really don't have anything to do with the onset?
And please don't anyone think I'm challenging your experience. I'm just putting it out their because the idea of a trigger doesn't fit for everyone.
Linncn,
I agree! Although most of us connect with a particular incident, who knows. I think any of us would be hard pressed to prove that it is associated with anything.
PhatsLinncn, that is certainly possible. I feel strongly about what I believe were my triggers, but I have no proof. As for some people not having those same kind of triggers, another possibility is that either they had something smaller that didn't grab their attention, or that what we call RA might actually be several different similar diseases, some of which have those triggers and some of which don't. To me it's speculation, but it is interesting to see what others have experienced.Isn't it interesting all of the different experiences with onset? Just goes to show, no one knows exactly what causes this thing. Maybe one day someone will go "Aha! So that's it!" And hopefully shortly after there will be a cure lol. That would be nice. It is interesting to hear everyone's stories though, and see the common threads, and the differences as well.
The question was what caused your first big flare, not what do you think caused your RA, so you must have been in a terrible flare and then been dx'd? In 20 years of RA, I had my only major flare just a couple of years ago, I guess my history must be unusual. So what made me go to the dr in the first place, my jaw was killing me and when the dentist couldn't figure it out he told me to go to my gp, but I don't consider it a flare, even though my RF was through the roof. So back to where you all went with this, I was pg with first DD and being diabetic, had to be very, very careful to monitor myself, I spent a year stressed out over the pregnancy and trying to make sure she was healthy, then I got really depressed after she was born and a year later was dx'd with RA.
Deidre, that's what did happen to me. Fine one day, next day my wrist hurt a little, next day the pain was beyond what I ever imagined pain could be like. Within about a week every joint was gigantic and I could hardly move. ANd that went on for almost four months till I was dx'd and the meds kicked in. My first experience with RA was a giant flare.
My biggest flare was about 2 weeks after I had my second baby.
MrsA2008-02-12 16:41:41Interesting.
My first biggest flare. I was taking an antibiotic leviqun (sp?). As the doc told me it was like a toxic reaction. My knees swelled so huge I could hardly walk. My hands hurt so bad that I couldn't even rub lotion on them. Like a dummy I had no clue the meds was bringing this on so I just kept taking them.
When it didn't actually go away a week after taking them then I had to see different docs to figure out the problem.
Was having back pain due to a bulging disk. Woke up one morning and couldn't get out of bed. Every joint was in agony. Was diagnosed with RA that week and the disk blew. Had back surgery to relieve pressue on sciatic nerve. Could have been coincidence? I started having symptoms 10 years prior but was told that I didn't have Ra.
Three years of being a foster parent. Caseworkers, losing children you want to adopt, adopting but going through h-e-double hockey sticks to get there... I was almost begging to get sick, lol.
I thought I was handling all of the stress very well until last summer. Started getting horrendous stomach aches. They subsided after a few months but were immediately followed by this all over body soreness, and then that evolved into joint pain. Within 2 weeks of the joint pain, one of my knees was so bad I could hardly walk. That finally prompted me to go to the doctor, and 2 months later I had an RA diagnosis.
No longer a foster parent as the focus now is on taking care of myself and my two very active toddlers.
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