My RA is acting up. It's not as bad as a true flare, more like it's reminding me of what life was like before I went on the minocycline. Now I vividly recall why I asked the rheumatologist for the drugs in the first place, and I see that it has taken some time for "not working" minocycline to completely leave my system. (I've been off it for over a month.) I'm starting on azulfidine (too lazy to look up the correct spelling now), but that's a ramp-up process and it will take a good three months at full dosage to see whether or not it's helping.
It's funny how easily I forget how bad I feel sometimes. (Actually, I believe this is an effective, involuntary psychological defense mechanism.) Even when I was feeling crummy a few months ago and decided to go off the old meds, I didn't feel this bad. I even started to think that maybe I could go without taking any RA meds at all. HA!
Sometimes my optimism amuses me.
1 comment:
I don't know much about RA, but I am very familiar with chronic pain. I can ignore it much of the time because I have a life in which I have much to do, I enjoy doing it and I am a rather "up" person in general.
What is interesting to me is that there are times when I can no longer ignore it. Recently, I found myself short-tempered and turning into a cranky b!tch. I had ignored my pain for so long that I was no longer in touch with it.
The pain drains me and when I have little resiliency left, that's when I feel it. When I finally realized what was happening, I took some Advil (my back had been in a serious flare - protruding lumbar disk) and I rested as much as possible. I began to recover and I felt better.
There are times (especially as mothers) where we just have to keep going because if we complained about every thing we felt, we'd get nothing done, but then other times, we HAVE to pay attention to our bodies so we can take care of ourselves.
I'm glad I have the ability to push through and not be a whiner, but it can catch up with us sometimes, eh?
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