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!