All quiet on the old lady leg front

This experiment is way slower than I had hoped! I sometimes get the feeling that either the tai chi or the fish oil is starting to work but then I have a bad day and curse their ineffectiveness (and sing the praises of my oh so risky but oh so fast-acting voltaren).

The one thing that is driving me nuts is that the arthritis seems to have won the war over my left wrist. You never realise how much you like to lean on things until you lose a wrist.

I'm planning to throw some foot reflexology into the mix in coming weeks as I think the fishoil and tai chi have been given a reasonable chance - not to mention the fact that my local massage place is offering a one hour special. It's important to note, however, that foot reflexology is apparently not all fun and games. Apparently it involves someone seriously wrestling with your feet until you beg for mercy. Still more fun than that exclusion diet...

Damn that excellent Western Medicine

I thought I had a big break through on the weekend as I had two wonderful pain free days. We went to a wedding on Saturday afternoon and lasted all the way through to midnight and beyond...in high heels!!

First I thought that the fish oil had finally kicked in as they say it needs two months to really get going. Then I thought that my two weeks of tai chi must have been paying off. Then I remembered I'd popped an extra voltaren (diclofenac) tablet on Saturday lunchtime in case I forgot to have one at dinner time with the excitement of the wedding.

Unfortunately this totally goes against the point of this blog which is to try and get off the medicine but man it was sweet. Funnily enough, one of the books I read on arthritis said that you really shouldn't wear high heels and that no one with arthritis should have more than two standard alcoholic drinks in one go. I think I can safely say that I despite ignoring that advice, my knees and ankles were not worse off at all. I'm not saying that I'm about to start wearing Laboutin heels and boozing every day but I think it goes to show that you can live a little and come out ok on the other side.

No action yet....on to experiment number 2

So we are up to week 4 of the fish oil tablets and nothing to report at this stage. I've had a few very bad days with the old lady legs during this period but I have also heard that you need to give fish oils a couple of months to kick in. I will give it the benefit of the doubt and continue the research!

In the meantime, I started tai chi last Wednesday and have certainly read some info that supports this as a very positive activity for inflammatory arthritis. I am conscious that you probably need to do it more than just one session a week to see the benefits so I am planning to do half an hour every night once our little guy has gone to bed. Now that I have written that down, surely I will stick to it.

I did try a tai chi video recently and oddly enough my 2 year old thought it was great fun. He particularly liked the part where you "release your chi" by rubbing your hands together, then patting your head, rubbing your face in downwards strokes, then pat all the way down each arms. There has certainly been a lot of loose chi at our place recently!

The other interesting thing for this week is the research that I tracked down that draws the link between hormonal changes after pregnancy and arthritis (link). I have always expected this must be the case because I have heard of quite a few women now who bizarrely have had their arthritis turn up in their late twenties after childbirth. It always seemed an odd cohort to me.

I really hope that this research is taken to its logical conclusion so that relevant treatment options could be considered. With my very limited medical knowledge, it seems to me that anything that could even out your hormones could help but I have no idea what can do that! Anyway, I am planning to do as much research as I can in this space if it means I can give some ideas to my GP and rheumatologist and I will get posting on tai chi once I've given it a red hot go.

The back story (and my first week of fish oil)

I am always super curious about how and when other people found out they had arthritis so I thought it would be worth a quick run down.

When Leo was about 6 months old, I kept getting one swollen ankle especially if I walked for any long distance. It wasn't too painful but it looked massive to me. I went and saw the doctor after a couple of weeks and he said it didn't look too swollen to him and that I had probably just rolled it. I was pretty sceptical both because I hadn't rolled my ankle and I was going to the very scungy local bulk billing (free) medical clinic.

Not long after this my other ankle starting swelling and my knees started getting sore. I went back to the same doctor and he again said it didn't seem like much swelling to him. He's a pretty portly gentleman and it was a bit hard to explain to him that my knees and ankles are usually very bony and defined! The doc said I could get some anti-inflammatories if I wanted but that I shouldn't worry too much.

I'm pretty anti taking drugs for the sake of it so I held off and went and saw a physio instead. The physio spotted the arthritis straight away and told me to head back to the doctor and get a referral to a rheumatologist which I did. The original doctor who had seen me had the nerve to say "I thought it might have been arthritis, I was going to refer you next time you came in!"

Anyway after it all got properly diagnosed they put me on steroids for a few weeks which I totally loved (is that bad?) They made my legs feel better and made me feel like I could take on the world! That was fun while it lasted but it didn't fix the problem. So ever since I've been on 50mg of voltaren twice a day.

So now it's been one week of fish oil. Apparently it takes a month or two to kick in so I'm going to give it more of a chance before I pass judgement. I've been a bit less sore this week but every week is different so it's hard to call this early. Fingers crossed it starts working soon!

Welcome to my old lady legs!

I'm a 29 year old mum of 1 who was diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis a few months after our little guy was born. The arthritis mostly affects my knees and ankles but occasionally branches out to bother my elbows, wrists, shoulders and anything else it can get a grip on.

Up until now, I've been happily managing it with a medium-sized daily dose of voltaren (diclofenac) but I've been spurred to action by the recent bad press on my drug of choice. I've decided to try and get myself off the drugs using whatever works.

So I hit the library, borrowed a book called "Overcoming Arthritis" by Dr Paul Lam & Judith Horstman, and started my journey to try every alternative to conventional Western medicine that I can find.

My list of alternative options that might help with Psoriatic Arthritis from this book is:

• Tai chi (the main thing that this book is advocating)
• An exclusion diet (focussed on dairy products, corn products, wheat products, meat - especially deli meats, eggs, citrus, tomatoes, peanuts, coffee and soy)
• Cutting out caffiene and alcohol
• Weight bearing exercise
• Water-based exercise
• Avoiding stress
• Meditation
• Hypnotherapy
• Massage
• Acupuncture/acupressure
• Yoga
• Movement therapy (Feldenkrais and Alexander Technique)
• Foot reflexology
• Reiki
• Homeopathy
• Aromatherapy
• Fish Oil or flaxseed oil

There were more options in there but I think these were the least crazy and most managable. My plan is to pick one each week and go for it. I'm conscious that some of these will need a bit longer so I'm just going to play it by ear if things need more time to settle in.

Week 1 is fish oil because my rheumatologist said it's his number 1 choice for replacing conventional medication so here I go!