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!