I was never a really healthy kid. From the time I was 13 years old in 1983, I had been in and out of the hospital many times with various health problems. I knew more doctors and nurses by first name than I knew kids my own age!
Doctors diagnosed me as enemic, and put me on iron suppliments. They thought at one time that I had Rheumatic Fever. I didn't even know what that was at 13 years old.
I started having joint inflammation off and on when I was fourteen, and this continued until I was seventeen. I had been tested for Rheumatoid Arthritis at the age of fifteen, but the test came back negative.
Finally, when I was seventeen years old, I was tested again, and the test came back positive for RA. I was immediately started on NSAIDS (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs).
In 1987, doctors didn't know that they needed to be aggressive from the get-go with drug therapy in order to stop this terrible disease. As a result of that, I suffered tremendously. I would end up having 12 surgeries to replace or repair joints!
I took the NSAIDs until I was eighteen, and was finally started on gold injections. Finally, when I was twenty years old, I was started on Methotrexate and Prednisone.
It wasn't until I was twenty-nine years old that I was started on REALLY aggressive drugs as soon as they were made available. That year, 1999, I was started on Enbrel shots. Finally, in 2003, I was started on Remicade infusions.
I am making it all sound simple, but there is was more that has happened to me in the last 20 years since I was diagnosed. I have been through alcoholism, severe depression, psychiatry, counseling, tons of dangerous medications, physical therapy, and lots more.
Just in the last year or two alone, I have learned how to live a happy, healthy, pain-free life with Rheumatoid Arthritis, and I can show you how to do the same.
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