I'm another newbie to the forum. I was diagnosed with PA less than a week ago. I still need to meet with the Rhumatoid specialist to verify the diagnosis. My feet began to hurt 2 months ago and it got to the point where I was having a hard time walking at all. I'm 30 years old, male, and I've never had any major medical problems in my life until the last few months. To be honest with everyone, coming on the forum has been kind of scary. Does anyone have PA and still live, walk, and function as well as they did before PA? My mother was the first to get online to do research on PA, and it left her with heavy concerns for my well being. One of her biggest concerns was that PA seemed to affect so many different joints in different people. She's afraid it's going to move to other parts of my body. I don't generally get sick and that's how it's been all of my life. I'm trying to look at this the same way, but it's difficult. Can you have PA and have it treated effectively enough to live a normal life without daily pain?
Yes you can be normal you just might have to adjust what normal is to you. I'm sure you will have a muchdifferent outlook once you start your meds. Will you be able to do everything you did before? Maybe, or maybe you will like the majority of us and modify those things. Don't be discouraged you will be okay, and hopefully better than okay. I'm 31 so I totally get where you atd coming from. If you need to vent I'm here. Actually I usually hang out in RA forum, lots more conversation. You will find all the support you want and need here. Take care. Thanks for the response. It sounds like I will have a better idea of what you mean after I start taking meds. My biggest frustration has been not being able to walk very well, if at all sometimes. If I can walk enough to exercise without all of the pain, I'll be happy. I think I read another post by someone that said when you have PA you develop a very close relationship with pain. That made a lot of sense to me. I'm just hoping that there are a lot of people out there with PA that live what they consider to be a normal life.
Hi Shade and welcome to the forum. I was diagnosed 4 years ago. I also have RA and the disease can overlap. Once you start meds you'll begin to feel much better. The pain will be less. Yes, you can achieve a level of normal. Don't be too fearful and don't let denial take control of your thoughts about this disease. You need to be realistic, start the meds that are prescribed and do as much as possible to return your body to it's previous normal. It's not an easy journey but it's possible. LindyHi Shade. This is my first post on here, but I just had to reply to you. My husband is 38 years old. He was diagnosed with PA 2 yrs. ago. He is extremely active: mountain biking, hiking, surfing, running, climbing; so the initial pain and the diagnosis were terribly hard for him. He has been on Humira for a year and is back doing all the things he loves. Along with the Humira he takes glucosamine and condroitin, fish oil capsules and a couple of other homeopathic joint treatments. He tries to keep his stress under control with meditation, yoga and massage, and he exercises religiously at least twice a day. He also gets acupuncture treatments when he has severe pain in his wrists, ankles and knees. In addition, we cut out gluten and artificial dyes, flavors and preservatives from our diets. All of these things have helped, and he is back to leading a completely normal life. On occasion, he does have some joint pain in the morning, but after he gets up and goes for a run, he's right as rain. We recently went on vacation, backpacking for a week through the rain forest and then a week of surfing. He was completely fine, with no pain or stiffness.
You can live a normal life with PA! I think the trick is to find out what works for you and go with it. My husband has been through several doctors, tried several medications, and really worked on diet and stress issues. Good luck to you.
I really appreciate the responses. It's also great to hear the stories about people that are active and have PA. It's been a while since I was here on the forum. Things are considerably better than they were at the time of my first post. I've been on Methyltrexate for about 4 months now. I also take Celebrex daily and Prednisone on the rough days, Fortunately I haven't had a lot of rough days lately which means the treatment is working. The time between my diagnoses and treatment was trying. I couldn't walk and I think that really scared me, and it made the disease real. I'm still trying to grip the fact that this is something I will deal with for my entire life. That's a difficult pill to swallow, but I guess you take it one day at a time.
Hey, Shade,