Blind Health

I have to wear glasses for my driving lessons. Ideally, I should really wear them more. Like at work for example; I spend all day on a computer staring at a screen. But I really don’t like having to wear them. I do feel guilty, considering I spent ages looking all around Leicester trying to find a pair I liked. In the end I got a two-colour pair with light blue on the sides and on top of the lenses and silver underneath. Gav says I look lovely in them, all intellectual (first time for everything), but I can’t get used to them. Maybe it’s a case of not wanting to.
Trouble is, I’ve been getting headaches and although I know it’s more than my eyesight, I know it’s not helping. Which is why i’m now considering contact lenses. Thing is, I don’t know if it’s such a good idea with taking methotrexate. Gavin can only get away with wearing contacts when he plays footy because being diabetic means his eyes are affected and can mean he could go blind (worst case scenario). RA sufferers taking mtx will know that, like many other arthritis medication, it can damage certain organs as well as your eyes.
So, where does this leave me? Well currently, being stubborn and still only wearing them when I’m on the road, when it’s actually compulsory! Does anyone else know anymore on this subject, or does anyone take RA meds and wear contacts already?

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One Month Smoke Free!

It’s been exactly one month now since me and Gavin have quit smoking. I was never a ‘proper’ smoker, so to speak; more one of those ‘casual’ ones. However that doesn’t mean that I’ve not missed it. Id like to say that the past four visits to our local boozer (yes, I know, but lack of money means we don’t get out much) have been uplifting, but it’s not. We try to keep our minds occupied but it’s so difficult when you watch people stepping out the front door to have a smoke. Drinking larger amounts of alcohol doesn’t help either as this only hightens the feeling of ‘need’. One day it’s like ‘I’m fine, I don’t need this , I’m doing it for myself, the boyfriend, the Arthur and hopefully the kids!’, the next it’s like ‘life is just too short’. As I’ve said before, there isn’t always stuff to really enjoy in life with money issues and lack of time. And when that is the case, these little things matter even more.

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Herbal Healing?

I’ve just finished reading a BBC news article about complimentary therapies to ease the pain of arthritis. This can be found here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7875192.stm It appears that they are over-all, useless. The Arthritis Research Campaign looked at the scientific evidence for over 40 different available treatments; 2/3 of treatments for RA and 1/5 of treatments for OA were found to be ineffective. These included blackcurrant seed oil, collagen, feverflu and vitamins A, C and E. Good old fish oil, however, was given a whopping 5 out of 5 for being effective in reducing joint pain and stiffness!
Ok, firstly, the statistics are a little deceiving; if you read the evidence in a different light you realise that actually 4/5 of alternative treatments for OA were found to be EFFECTIVE. This is good news for avid fans of herbal medicine, surely? My mum for example is always cutting out newspaper and magazine articles to give me about the latest alternative inflammatory saviour. However, I’m quite lucky in the sense that my prescribed medicines are doing a brilliant job already.
My Rheumatologist has also warned that taking fish oil supplements can cause confusion when knowing whether the pain relief is coming from those, or the pills that she’s giving me. In that sense, isn’t it a little dangerous to let an alternative therapy mask the pain when really, we should be trying to treat the condition with ‘proper’ treatment? Or is finding a suitable and helpful non-toxic drug the way forward?

The dude in the video argues that we should be trying to find the root cause of the RA condition rather than trying to suppress it with drugs. Easier said than done...

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To Drink Or Not To Drink?

Last night I was woken up by the sound of a woman throwing up all over the street after a night on the town. This continued for a whole hour after getting into her home opposite ours... It was yet another reminder of why I will never let myself drink to the excess. But, yes, that’s right, I DO drink as an RA sufferer and I DO drink on tablets which clearly state not to do so. This, as most of us know, is because the tablets can deteriorate our liver as it is, (as well as most other organs!) I’ve always wandered how many others out there do the same? My meds are Methotrexate which I take 5 of on a weekly basis. Pretty much every weekend, as a minimum, I will share a bottle of wine with the other half. And this doesn’t include the odd drink at a pub in the week if we feel like it, and it doesn’t include exchanging the wine on the sofa for a night out of fairly heavy drinking.
I guess the main reason I do so is because my monthly blood tests of the state of my liver almost always show a normal result. If it didn’t, then I’m fairly certain I’d cut back. But is this the proper way of thinking? And is it setting myself up for a fall?
The thing is, we already have to deal with the arthritis itself, and for a lot of us, it means not being able to do the things we used to do such as sports. So why should it take away this other pleasure that most of us get from having a drink? Or am I just trying to find excuse here?
Any thoughts?

Please keep in mind however people: http://www.drinkaware.co.uk/

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The Not So Long Goodbye

When we moved into this house, we always new we wanted a pet to love and to feel a part of our home. A cat it would have to be. And it was magical when, only once we were beginning to worry we would never find the one, he turned up on our doorstep in all his bewitching blackness. Eyes so golden. Limbs long and limber. These perfect qualities were even more perfectly defined due to his completely rugged and cocky personality. He was street, yet clumsy; cheeky but loving, and sent to us when we needed him.
We don’t have much luck generally, Gavin and I; we’ve been through a lot to get where we are, and so it almost didn’t seem real that we could be blessed with Flynn, our lil’ man.
Saturday morning cuddles were our favourite time; I’d go downstairs and he’d be there as usual, perched on next doors back gate waiting to be let in. He’d eat his breakfast while I’d run back upstairs and hide with Gav under the bedcovers. After a few minutes we’d hear him charge up the stairs and patter into the room then pounce on the bed and clamber over us until we’d throw the covers off and smother him in cuddles and kisses. He was so loved.

That lasted five months. Last Tuesday morning, his usual clockwork-self didn’t show up for breakfast. Gavin had immediate doubts, but I didn’t want to assume over just one morning. But the days went by and tears were increasingly shed. Until our doubts were confirmed by a woman who lived on the street behind ours. On Monday night, he was hit by a car, some people saw the commotion, and he was picked up by the council the next morning. And that was it. Over.
What hit me the most about the woman’s story was her description of Flynn. Yes, she mentioned his black fur, the colour of his collar, but one word she emphasised more than most. ‘Long’. And he was just that, a long cat. We used to change the words in the song ‘Love Shack’ to ‘Long Cat’. Watch him stretch out across the floor or flop his body across both our laps to relax.
I still look for him, open the door and tell him I love him. Perhaps he served his time with us. Sent to remind us that we are infact people who can have luck. To love us as much as we loved him. But that maybe we have to concentrate on each other now.

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You Swine!

‘Swineage!’ At least that’s what my colleagues at work say when they hear anyone so much as sneeze in the office. Of course they mean the famous Swine Flu that’s hit the nation...hard. No one knows how to deal with it, how seriously to take it or where it’s going. I hear some people taking it very seriously indeed, kindly giving the office daily updates on the progress of the virus, and some shrugging it off as no big deal. Unfortunately it’s us ‘low-immuned’, ‘already diseased’ individuals that sit there in quiet uneasiness over the whole situation, knowing that we’d not only have to deal with the pig flu itself, but suffer the effect the bloody thing has on our personal conditions. My boyfriend kindly informed me just the other day that he’d need to receive the tammy-flu injection within 24 hours else his Diabetic self is in danger of snuffing it...yeah, cheers, that gives me something else to worry myself over! We make a great pair; me with my tablets and him with his needles, s’all good! Anyway, if you were in need of some enlightenment over this confusing swine, then this should help clear things up:
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Will_autoimmune_disease_increase_the_chances_of_getting_swine_flu

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Flying the Nest

Moving into this home six months ago, our first home, was quite a strain. Moving house is said to be the second biggest stressful thing you can do in life, the first being divorce. So it’s no surprise that this was made altogether more difficult with the RA. The endless shifting of boxes, the lack of a bed for 2 nights and the cleaning, urgh god, the cleaning...my fingers were stiffened into a whole new shape after hours of scrubbing. I don’t know how these people do it, those that feel they need to move after a year or two. Our house may not be the perfect family home with its one bedroom and bathroom on a terrace street, but I’m damned if I’m moving again any time soon! I feel like I’ve moved around enough lately. Going to University in Northampton meant moving house three times, not including the trip back home for however many months in my second year due to the onset of arthritis. Yep, not the greatest of timings! One thinks one will stay put for now.

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