Did You Know?

Rheumatoid arthritis is often diagnosed late or after joint damage begins. Symptoms are often mistaken as having a less severe cause.

When I first noticed symptoms it was six months before my diagnosis. I sustained a wrist “injury” that took six months to heal. In retrospect, this type of problem should not have eaten away at my mobility, let alone over six months. This was a huge indicator of a larger problem. As the wrist healed, I noticed issues in my other joints.

Thinking even further back, I may have experienced symptoms during college! I lived on the third floor of my dorm and I thought my knees and ankles and hips hurt because I carried my textbooks and heavy backpacks up and down the stairs all day, all over campus. I was unhappy, excessively tired and I just assumed it was stress. How wrong was I?!

I was always healthy before this. I got the occasional cold and sinus infection but there was no indication I could be seriously ill. I just chocked these symptoms as “college life”.

Here’s a tip: NEVER EVER blog before you’ve taken your medications. I woke up at 5 am this morning because I needed to pee. Prednisone is a diuretic and the higher the dose, the more urgent my bladder becomes. I forgot I cannot drink water after 11pm at night before and well, I did. After I woke up I remembered I Love Lucy was on and then I was fully awake.

I thought about using my Dragon Dictate (voice recognition) software but didn’t? I have no good reason for not using it.

As a result of this second of stupidity, I was tired, run down, listless, today,..(heh! [minus the listless]) and I had a boatload of errands to run. So, today, I present a seriously RA-friendly nail art: sponged glitter and water decals.

I started with 2 coats of Color Club Twiggie as my base.

I used a sponge tip applicator to apply a generous helping of Serum No. 5 Happy Special Day! to the cuticles.

I applied Pueen Cosmetics water decals to random fingers.

Hi, my name is Monica and I have RA.