The unseen killer

I was put on lots of different painkillers, but none of them worked only steroids before I saw the rheumatologist.

PsA treatment experiences

In June I was diagnosed with psoriatic and rheumatoid after I was crippled with a swollen, stiff, very painful knee for about 7 months and swollen index finger and knuckles aching, both wrists, also getting fatigued every day. So she put me on methotrexate 15mg tablets once a week.

After a few months, she decided to put me on methotrexate 20mg injections but got an infection so had to come off the injection and take antibiotics for 10 days. More pain started in my other knee and ankle this time and carried on with the injection after.

After a few weeks, I got a chest infection this time and had to stop the methotrexate injection again and was put on different antibiotics for 5 days.

Well now my shoulders have been aching, and all of today my ankle has been hurting. My rheumatologist said if methotrexate drugs are stopped that the immune system plays up with a vengeance, as though it's attacking you more because you have taken something away from it that it wants.

The impact of fatigue from PsA in daily life

Fatigue is not just heavy eyes like when we are tired at night and wake up like spring lambs racing around. It's our eyes closing on us at any time of the day while walking around like a zombie out of a horror film without the blood dripping from our mouths. Our body is so weak that it feels like we will clasp with every step we take to get to the sofa or our bed. You feel like you have had a good night's sleep and all of a sudden during the day the above happens, in a shop, when cooking and it can be like that throughout the day, just turn the cooker off and lay down before you fall down.

Joint stiffness from psoriatic arthritis

Stiffness, well that is another problem with our immune system playing up and having a tantrum, only this one is going to be around for life now, this tantrum will not be grown out of like a childhood tantrum.

It's like getting a bone from a dog, almost impossible.

You get up to stand and walk and your immune system is holding your knee in a metal brace of some sort and slowly over time, it starts to warm up and soften it.

It is hard for others to understand

Those of us who have inflammatory arthritis, like psoriatic arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, and lupus can only try to explain what it feels like to others but even then, those of you that read about it but don't have it, cannot feel what it is truly like, living with something that can explode in you at any time.