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Inflammation Update
As previously mentioned, I started the year with an autoimmune attack on my eye. This occurred after a month of over-extension: after a long day at work, I'd come home and spend a bunch of energy planning a trip to Australia and New Zealand, then not get a lot of sleep before doing it all again. The first sign of autoimmune inflammation, though I didn't realize it at the time, was soreness in the arch of my right foot. I chalked it up to old orthotics and added new boot inserts to the trip shopping list. I'd also been using a standing desk at work for two months in an attempt to reduce sitting-induced back pain and see if reduced slouching helped my esophagus's acid problem.
My eye recovered fully and my vision is back to 20/15; the only sign of the attack is a small "battle scar" blip on the iris. The only autoimmune blood test that came back positive was HLA-B27. This wasn't too surprising, since it's linked to ankylosing spondylitis, a condition which led to my uncle's fused spine. This antigen marker led to a referral from the eye surgeon to a rheumatologist.
After getting help from my parents to figure out all the causes of death in my family history, the first rheumatology appointment resulted in a diagnosis of psoriatic arthritis (a relative of ankylosing spondylitis), a prescription for meloxicam as needed, an NSAID (similar family ibuprofen, but with longer duration and more powerful per milligram), and instruction to get x-rays of my spine and pelvis. The x-rays showed signs of calcification of my spine and SI joint, so I had another rheumatologist appointment to talk about chronic disease management and treatment options. Basically, my immune system works too well, so it attacks various parts of my body like joints, skin around my scalp, and occasionally my eye. Biologics are the big-gun drugs for autoimmune diseases, which are expensive and increase the likelihood of serious infection. They sound pretty scary, so I decided to focus on "diet and lifestyle" and NSAIDs for a while to see how far I can get with adjusting my environment and routine.
So yeah, that was January. I averaged a health-care office visit every other day, but by the end of the month I wasn't feeling too bad. In February we spent two weeks in Maui, where I was able to do low-impact activities like snorkeling, scuba diving, hiking, mini golfing, and hanging out on the beach. Eating was still a bit of a challenge: the acid reflux and esophageal challenges in swallowing that were my main health problem in 2015 persisted, so there were a lot of rather slow meals. Then, half way through the trip and the day after a hike on the wet side of the island, I started to feel a bit sick, maybe a mild viral or bacterial infection. That night I had a crazy intense acid reflux experience, preventing me from sleeping all night. Around 3:30 I took a famotidine (Pepcid) pill that I'd been prescribed but hadn't really used. Two and a half hours later, we got on the ferry to Moloka'i. With only a few thousand residents, no stoplights, and a laid-back culture, Moloka'i is a great place to feel crappy. I started feeling better, and acid issues started to fade. Remarkably, I've had hardly any acid reflux in the three months since returning, though I've still got some swallowing challenges.
My mom gave me a copy of The Anti-Inflammation Zone by Barry Sears, the creator of the Zone diet. The book explained, to a moderate degree of satisfaction, how pro- and anti-inflammatory responses work (arachidonic acid versus eicosanoids and other long Latin names). Sears's primary recommendations, repeated over and over, are the Zone diet and high-dose, high-purity fish oil for EPA and DHA. I found his discussions of the diet kind of annoying, particularly since his extensive biography wasn't footnoted from the text, so I couldn't tell what was part of the diet plan because of sound science and what was present arbitrarily. The fish oil recommendation, on the other hand, seems to have solid science behind it. I've been taking fish oil for a couple months, currently around 2 teaspoons per day (~3 grams of ω-3 fats), and eating salmon and herring whenever I get the chance. The EPA doesn't seem to have done much for my foot/ankle/SI joint inflammation, but my psoriasis symptoms seem to have improved, perhaps from the DHA. During the winter I was drinking a lot of homemade chai, with the goal of increased intake of the anti-inflammatory ginger and turmeric. I even brewed a tamarind turmeric galangal brown ale. Keeping a crock pot of warm chai has been less appealing as the weather has gotten warmer.
I've been back and forth on the meloxicam. The side effects so far haven't been too bad&endash;mostly mild dehydration from my kidneys working hard–but stomach issues and intestinal bleeding are possible. When I take it for several days, my ankle/foot pain is a lot less, and I think it may help my esophageal troubles. After taking it all last week and experiencing very few choking incidents, I stopped taking it over the weekend. The last two days have featured moderately increased foot pain and some distressingly intense swallowing problems (leading to unpleasant regurgitation), so I'm taking the drug again in the hope that my eating challenge can be addressed by reducing inflammation.
Emotionally and intellectually, I've been adjusting to a lifestyle focused on eliminating stress, reducing voluntary commitments, and enhancing physical health. My natural tendency is to overcommit and prioritize tasks over sleep, exercise, and hygiene. That's a good recipe for accumulating inflammation, so I'm learning to say "no" and prioritize my own health over being helpful all the time. I've also been riding my bike (yay springtime!) and more regular about stretching on the floor and not sitting still for hours, though I've been in basically the same position in my hammock for the last two and a half hours of blogging. The nice thing about chronic illness is that if I don't do things right today, I can get back on target tomorrow.
My eye recovered fully and my vision is back to 20/15; the only sign of the attack is a small "battle scar" blip on the iris. The only autoimmune blood test that came back positive was HLA-B27. This wasn't too surprising, since it's linked to ankylosing spondylitis, a condition which led to my uncle's fused spine. This antigen marker led to a referral from the eye surgeon to a rheumatologist.
After getting help from my parents to figure out all the causes of death in my family history, the first rheumatology appointment resulted in a diagnosis of psoriatic arthritis (a relative of ankylosing spondylitis), a prescription for meloxicam as needed, an NSAID (similar family ibuprofen, but with longer duration and more powerful per milligram), and instruction to get x-rays of my spine and pelvis. The x-rays showed signs of calcification of my spine and SI joint, so I had another rheumatologist appointment to talk about chronic disease management and treatment options. Basically, my immune system works too well, so it attacks various parts of my body like joints, skin around my scalp, and occasionally my eye. Biologics are the big-gun drugs for autoimmune diseases, which are expensive and increase the likelihood of serious infection. They sound pretty scary, so I decided to focus on "diet and lifestyle" and NSAIDs for a while to see how far I can get with adjusting my environment and routine.
So yeah, that was January. I averaged a health-care office visit every other day, but by the end of the month I wasn't feeling too bad. In February we spent two weeks in Maui, where I was able to do low-impact activities like snorkeling, scuba diving, hiking, mini golfing, and hanging out on the beach. Eating was still a bit of a challenge: the acid reflux and esophageal challenges in swallowing that were my main health problem in 2015 persisted, so there were a lot of rather slow meals. Then, half way through the trip and the day after a hike on the wet side of the island, I started to feel a bit sick, maybe a mild viral or bacterial infection. That night I had a crazy intense acid reflux experience, preventing me from sleeping all night. Around 3:30 I took a famotidine (Pepcid) pill that I'd been prescribed but hadn't really used. Two and a half hours later, we got on the ferry to Moloka'i. With only a few thousand residents, no stoplights, and a laid-back culture, Moloka'i is a great place to feel crappy. I started feeling better, and acid issues started to fade. Remarkably, I've had hardly any acid reflux in the three months since returning, though I've still got some swallowing challenges.
My mom gave me a copy of The Anti-Inflammation Zone by Barry Sears, the creator of the Zone diet. The book explained, to a moderate degree of satisfaction, how pro- and anti-inflammatory responses work (arachidonic acid versus eicosanoids and other long Latin names). Sears's primary recommendations, repeated over and over, are the Zone diet and high-dose, high-purity fish oil for EPA and DHA. I found his discussions of the diet kind of annoying, particularly since his extensive biography wasn't footnoted from the text, so I couldn't tell what was part of the diet plan because of sound science and what was present arbitrarily. The fish oil recommendation, on the other hand, seems to have solid science behind it. I've been taking fish oil for a couple months, currently around 2 teaspoons per day (~3 grams of ω-3 fats), and eating salmon and herring whenever I get the chance. The EPA doesn't seem to have done much for my foot/ankle/SI joint inflammation, but my psoriasis symptoms seem to have improved, perhaps from the DHA. During the winter I was drinking a lot of homemade chai, with the goal of increased intake of the anti-inflammatory ginger and turmeric. I even brewed a tamarind turmeric galangal brown ale. Keeping a crock pot of warm chai has been less appealing as the weather has gotten warmer.
I've been back and forth on the meloxicam. The side effects so far haven't been too bad&endash;mostly mild dehydration from my kidneys working hard–but stomach issues and intestinal bleeding are possible. When I take it for several days, my ankle/foot pain is a lot less, and I think it may help my esophageal troubles. After taking it all last week and experiencing very few choking incidents, I stopped taking it over the weekend. The last two days have featured moderately increased foot pain and some distressingly intense swallowing problems (leading to unpleasant regurgitation), so I'm taking the drug again in the hope that my eating challenge can be addressed by reducing inflammation.
Emotionally and intellectually, I've been adjusting to a lifestyle focused on eliminating stress, reducing voluntary commitments, and enhancing physical health. My natural tendency is to overcommit and prioritize tasks over sleep, exercise, and hygiene. That's a good recipe for accumulating inflammation, so I'm learning to say "no" and prioritize my own health over being helpful all the time. I've also been riding my bike (yay springtime!) and more regular about stretching on the floor and not sitting still for hours, though I've been in basically the same position in my hammock for the last two and a half hours of blogging. The nice thing about chronic illness is that if I don't do things right today, I can get back on target tomorrow.
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I hope you beat this soundly.