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Subject: any opinions please? :) PsA
After reading through a few posts and seeing how lovely you all are I've decided to brave it and post! I would be really greatful for some opinions on symptoms etc as I'm not convinced by googling so far :) Here is my story/bit of back ground- I'm 24, have had psoriasis since I was 14 and stiff joints since I suppose the same time as my psoriasis started. Never really bothered me apart from the stiffness in my knees when standing up from sitting until earlier this year. Nearly a year ago to the day I gave birth to my youngest son, a natural home birth with no pain relief (reason I'm giving this is to show I do know what pain is lol!) after that I breast fed him for 5 months. Within a couple of weeks of stopping breatfeeding I got a really bad strep throat infection which brough on my worst ever flare of psoriasis and it also happened to be my first flare up in 4 years. This was around May. I also noticed around this time that the stiffness was back in my knees but this time my wrists, fingers and ankles were stiff too. It got worse as the weeks went on until the point where I couldn't even lift up my baby or chase my 3 year old around. One Saturday in June I woke up with pain and burning in my left knee. When I looked it was swollen 3 times its normal size and had locked into place so I couldn't straighten it or put any weight on it. Not only did it feel burning hot to me but my OH could feel the heat from it too. I honestly didn't think anything of it at the time, thought I must have banged it without realising. I gave in that night and got an appiontment with the out of hours GP. Much to my confustion she was more interested in checking out the rest of my body and pointed out swelling, that to be honest, I had never really paid attention to (had stiffness and discomfort in these joints before but not what I would class as pain). She was really concerned about the swelling and the psoriasis so told me to go to my own GP and said she would note it all for him.
Usually an appointment with a GP in my practice lasts 5 minutes, 10 if you're lucky or half dead! But he had me and the OH in the room for 50 minutes checking me over, asking questions and explaining about arthritis. He said he was 99% sure that I have PsA but some of my joint swelling and family history points to RA. Of course this scared the hell out of me and I still refuse to believe it. He has refered me to the Rhuemy and asked me to make an appointment for bloods (silly I know but I was too scared to find out so I didn't go) still waiting on a letter from the Rhuemy although the GP said it would take months but seriously 6 months? That's a bit long?? The past 3 weeks have been torture. I've been taking dicolfenac and cocodimal but they are helping and more. I have been near to falling asleep in meeting as I keep getting waves of total exhastion coming over me. I am tired all of the time. I didn't even realise until now that it was possible to wake up more tired than I was when i went to bed the noight before. I have to set my alarm to wake me 2 hours before my sons usually wake up as it take around that amount of time for me to get out of bed and get the strength to open the milk, lift the kettle etc. Both my knees have been swollen for over a week now, same size as my thighs. You wouldn't be able to tell them apart. My knukles and wrists feel stiffer than usual and just about everything (or so it seems) hurts. this is what is hurting right now Both ankles, right one worse
Both knees (can't straighten the right one at all)
My tail bone
Bottom of my spine
My neck (I can't turn to the left) I also has weakness and stiffnes in my wrists and fingers/hands. I tried to cook tonight. What a diaster. I stuggled up, shuffled into the kitchen. I couldn't lift the kettle to make the pasta, couldn't cut the butternut squash and couldn't open the jar of pesto. I finally gave up and had a bit of a tantrum whan I tried to lift a plate of cooked chicken breasts from the fridge and dropped them because of my stupid wrists! i am now in my bedroom writing this because not only did I scare my OH with my outburst but I feel so bad that he doesn't know what to do with me. Sorry for the long post and thank you so much if you have managed to read this far without giving up. I suppose I'm just looking for someone to either tell me that my GP is probably wrong and that my symptoms don't add up to either of these things or tell me that it doesn't get much worse than this. I know there are people much younger than me but at only 24 with 2 beautiful young children to look after and the rest of my life to be getting on with the thought of having things not only get worse but there for ever scares me. I thought it would be better to ask people that know what they are talking about than just trying to find answers from google
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