Years of misdiagnoses

I am a 68 year old female in good physical condition, except for my missed diagnosis for the last 3.5 years. It started with every once in a while. Maybe once every two years, I would lose my big toenail. It would just all of a sudden lift. My manicurist told me there’s no fungus. She couldn’t understand why this kept happening. At that time I didn’t have any idea about psoriatic arthritis until three years ago.

Searching for answers

For the past three years, every June or July, I would have this flare where my knees and my ankles I could barely walk. I was hobbling and then as quickly as it came on, eight weeks later, it would disappear. I would go to the doctor hobbling in and they would link it to tendonitis or my hamstrings were too tight and wanted to send me home with pain pills. I denied the pain pills and kept telling the doctor something was wrong and I wasn’t gonna go home and take pain pills to cover up the real problem. I went to therapy. I went to Ortho and surprisingly both of those areas of medicine told me it was some thing else.

Finally seeing a rheumatologist

I kept insisting I needed a referral to rheumatology to which they all kept denying. I do have Kaiser and I finally filed a formal complaint and that was how I got to see the rheumatologist. I wasn’t in her office 10 minutes and she told me you have psoriatic arthritis. So for three years, I suffered with the pain and laid on the couch for two months. For the last three years June and July going undiagnosed. The diagnosis was relieving in the fact that there was some thing going on I was suffering this pain and finally somebody was listening.

Adjustments since a psoriatic arthritis diagnosis

I currently, since I was just diagnosed two months ago, I am trying to reverse or correct what’s going on and why. My body is so confused with a diet. I have eliminated all sugar, all grains, and I’ve lost 20 pounds. I figured if I need to fight this, I need to be in fighting condition. I have another 15 pounds to go and I will be within my ideal weight for my height and continue on this journey to see if what I put in my body can help my body. I also want to say that my brother was diagnosed five years ago with the same thing, yet neither one of us carry the gene.