Showing posts with label inflammation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label inflammation. Show all posts
16:46

Endless Struggles

It's beginning to feel like a constant struggle at the moment. I met with the rheumatology nurse last week to start treatment. We went through all the forms and such. I was contacted by BUPA to arrange a time to deliver the drugs and have a nurse come for my first dose. This feels like the longest week of my life. My drugs are due to be delivered on Friday (27.03.15) and my first loading dose is happening on Monday (30.03.15). This feels like the longest week of my life.

My steroids have now entirely worn off. All I have right now is Codiene to try and dull the pain, and it's really not working. I do have tramadol but the side effects are too much to use it consistently. My biggest issue is my back pain. I've had constant pain around the sacroilliac joints aswell as an increasing stiffness in my neck and upper back, severely limiting my flexibility and general movement. Emotionally, I'm at a very low point...


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16:40

Small Bowel MRI



Continuing with my diagnosis, last Monday I had to go back to the hospital for a small bowel MRI.
MRI is short for “Magnetic Resonance Imaging”. It utilises strong magnetic fields and radio waves to generate images of the body. It has the benefit over traditional x-rays and CT scans that it doesn’t expose you to radiation. There are advantages and disadvantages of each technique. I personally am not worried about getting x-rays. I’d much rather have a little radiation than continue to suffer, though some people are concerned about the effects of radiation, so MRI is a valid alternative. Pretty sure I’m not going to get superpowers no matter how many x-rays I have, boo.

The purpose of MRI was to investigate my small bowel for signs of inflammatory bowel disease – common types of IBD being Crohn’s and Ulcerative Collitis. My current diagnosis is ‘active IBD’. My abdomen is often quite swollen, noticeably bigger at some points and tender to touch pretty. I more often than not have pain in my abdomen after eating manifesting as horrible gut wrenching cramps that leave me with little more to do than curl up in a position that’s remotely comfy and feel sorry for myself while waiting for them to pass. It can vary in its onset. It can occur 5 minutes after eating or it can appear half an hour after eating. This also varies with what and how much I eat. Sometimes I’m okay, sometimes I think those chips will be the end of me. With this often comes horrible diarrhoea (It’s hard treading fine line between being informative and being gross, sometimes you just have to be honest).

From a previous colonoscopy – which I thankfully had prior to starting writing the blog, as I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t want a play by play of that! – it showed my large bowel to be normal, with no obvious ulcers or areas of concern. Biopsies were taken but were inconclusive. So the next step was to see if my small bowel was inflamed which unfortunately can’t be reached by the camera.

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13:28

Pain

A rather dramatic title, I'll admit, but that is what I'm going to talk to you about today. You can find out more about the specific conditions that I'm suffering from on my 'About Me' page. Here I'm going to try to explain to you how that main physically manifests on a daily basis. 

As an autoimmune disease, my body is mistakenly attacking normal healthy cells as a result of a certain stimulus (in my case, not quite sure what that stimulus is). In particular, my body is attacking the cells lining my joints, commonly referred to as rheumatoid arthritis (not to be confused with osteoarthritis which is considered to arise from 'general wear and tear', again, I'll refer you to my About Me page). This is causing inflammation of the joints. This inflammation can sometimes be evident in the physical swelling of the joint or it can be unnoticable. Fellow sufferers are probably all too familiar with this. If people can't see the source of the pain, they are less likely to believe its there and this can be infuriating when you're in agony, but let's save that for some other posts.

 I've attempted to illustrate (poorly in photoshop, I'm so sorry!) the areas of pain in the diagrams below (that I borrowed from work - these are forms typically used in skeletal identification reports and disaster victim identification reports for detailing the skeletal elements discovered or any particular distinct marks/scars/other identifying features on the body). In the skeletal image, I've attempted to illustrate the joints that are swollen and the areas of pain on the complete body image - as you can see the pain from one joint can manifest over a significant area.


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