Where does it hurt?

When I first got arthritis the answer would have been EVERYWHERE. I'm not nearly as bad as I just to be but I still can't work and live normal life without pain and difficulties with movements. Lately I haven't been working on my recovery. I'm slowly starting again but I'm going to take it slowly. One ting I'm going to try to do this winter is to monitor better where it hurts. Is it getting worse or better? Dose my diet affect the pain? Am I better when exercise or not?

The red color marks pain and the purple marks difficulties with movements

Finally I have my computer back

I'm so happy. Now I should be able to start blogging again. 

It's been a month since I arrived in Iceland. When I came it was snowing, now month later it is still snowing. I do wish that the snow would go away and the spring would come instead. Apart from the weather it has been wonderful being back home. I love seeing my friends and family and spending time with them. Usually my husband and I go back in the fall but this year I will stay in Iceland for the fall semester but he goes back to Chapel Hill, NC. I will be living with my best friend in Reykjavik. So I have been busy moving and finding stuff for my room. 

So what has happened this last month in weight, arthritis and fertility.  A lot and still nothing:(

• I gained 6 pounds. I was expecting that. Every time I go to Iceland I gain weight.  
• I'm still feeling pretty bad from the arthritis. 
• I haven't gotten pregnant but we had our first appointment at fertility clinic in Iceland. 

I'm feeling positive for the summer. There's some things I need to focus on. First of all I need to loose weight. I have been all winter trying to get rid of these extra weight. Now I need to get serious and do what is necessary to loose weight --> eat less and exercise more. Second it's important that I do what I can to ease the pain for the arthritis. Third I'm going to spend the summer with my husband before he goes back to USA.  

Food that kicks arthritis butt UPDATE

These berries are supposed to be good to eat if you have arthritis

Acaiberry

Blueberries

Black currants

Cherry berries

Raspberry 

Strawberries

These vegetable have been recommend if you're dealing with arthritis

Cuccumber

Carrots

Cellery

Broccoli

Spinach

Onion

Sweet potatoes

Beetroot

These fruits are suggested to help with arthritis

apples

Apparently spices can have good effects on arthritis

Curry

Fennel

Turmeric

Then we have

Ginger

Garlic

Chili

Chinnamon

I think it's good to eat a lot of fish (if you're into fish)

Cod

Salmon

I'm always looking for food that's supposed to have good effects on arthritis. Anything you could think of that should be on this list

Food that fights arthritis

My arthritis journey has led me to the place where I look at food and think "Would this benefit my arthritis" or "is that a good arthritis food". I firmly believe that food can be helpful to keep arthritis down. I even have an excel-sheet where I write down food that kicks arthritis butt. 

I don't whether it is all true what you read about the healing power of food but I don't care. I will rather eat food that some odds are that will keep the arthritis down than not. 

These berries are supposed to be good to eat if you have arthritis

Acaiberry

Blueberries

Cherry berries

Raspberry 

Strawberries

These vegetable have been recommend if you're dealing with arthritis

Cuccumber

Carrots

Cellery

Broccoli

Spinach

Onion

Sweet potatoes

These fruits are suggested to help with arthritis

apples

Apparently spices can have good effects on arthritis

Curry

Fennel

Turmeric

Then we have

Ginger

Garlic

Chili

I'm always looking for food that's supposed to have good effects on arthritis. Anything you could think of that should be on this list

Vitamins, supplements and other remedies for arthritis

Currently I'm taking D-vitamin, B-12 vitamin, C-vitamin, MSM for my arthritis. To increase fertility I'm taking folic acid and Freyja. Freyja is herbal tablets which I bought in Iceland at Jurtaapótek. 

Another vitamins that have been recommending for RA are:

B-6 vitamin

B-5 vitamin

Calcium

Magnesium

Zinc

Alfafla

Cetyl myrist-oleat

My concern is do I have to take all these vitamins or is it possible for me to get enough from my food?

I always thought that antioxidants where for people who were trying to keep their youth. After I read more on the internet about RA, antioxidants seems to keep popping up. Therefore that's another thing that I'm wondering whether I should add to my growing vitamin cabin.

E-vitamin

C-vitamin

Beta-carotene 

Selenium

I don't know, it's sounds so overwhelming. I eat a lot of berries, almost every day. Is it necessary for my to take antioxidants vitamins?

When I lived in Iceland, I ate fish at least once a week. My goal was always to try to eat it at least three times a week, didn't always work. Sadly when I moved to USA I stopped eating fish. Partly because it's more expensive here than in Iceland but also I don't  know how to cook the fish they're selling here in NC. Therefore when I was living in Iceland I wasn't so worry about my omega-3. I also took fish oil so I was pretty sure I was getting some omega-3 in my body. Since I moved to USA I eat those seeds to get my omega-3

flax-seeds

chia-seeds

But I suspect that I'm not getting enough omega-3 which isn't good.

I found on an Icelandic website heilsa that they recommended this oil

náttljósaolíur (I have no idea what that is in English)

Is there any more vitamins or supplements that you think would benefit RA patient?

I-Pad Day 12, week no. 2

My husband and I woke up this morning half past four, rushed out of the house, drove for 40 minutes and then waited in line for three hours. All this to buy an I-pad for the husband. I have never done anything like this before so I'm pretty excited about having done this. Couldn't care less about the I-pad.

I'm still not eating  properly nor exercising just spending a lot of time sulking and feeling sorry for myself. I have heard that is supposed to do wonders for your arthritis. Sometime I have days when I feel sorry for myself, sometimes it lasts for days. The current sulkiness and feeling sorry for myself are still going strong and it's their third day. You have to give them credit for sticking to it.

It's not just the arthritis that is keeping me down. I'm specially feeling sorry because of the fertility problems that my husband and I are facing. This cycle was or is the last cycle before our appointment at our fertility clinic. And of course the cycle is all messed up and I haven't ovulated so there's no chance that something happened this time. Last time when my arthritis was all flared up, my period stopped. I'm so afraid that is what is going on this cycle. That my body have decided that I'm too sick to be having periods, the body should be concentrating on healing the broken parts. 

I don't know, I just feel rotten these days and can't get me in the groove again.

 

Vitamins, supplements and other remedies

 Vitamins and supplements

Currently I'm taking 

D-vitamin

B-12 vitamin

C-vitamin

MSM

for my arthritis

I don't eat fish after I moved to USA so I eat these seeds to get my omega-3. Sadly I don't think I'm getting enough. 

Flax-seeds
Chia-seeds 

Therefore I have thinking about buying some omega-3 pills. 

 Other remedies

I take long hot baths to ease the pain and pour a lot of 

sea-salt

in the bath. I find it helpful and it definitely helps with the psoriasis. I also use my wonder cream from Iceland called
 

vöðva og liðagaldur

from company called Villimey. I don't whether it's possible to buy it here in USA. That cream did wonders for my and it worked like painkillers for me. I rubbed it to my joints and it eased the pain. Best of all it's organic and made from Icelandic herbs. 

To keep the psoriasis patches off I use

Organic Green tea with ginger 

dermovat - cream

Surprisingly the cream which I get from the doctors doesn't work nearly as well as the tea. I recommend the tea for everyone with psoriasis. Maybe it won't work for all people but when I drink this tea my patches go away. 

 

 
Fertility supplements

To increase fertility I'm taking

folic acid

Freyja

Freyja is herbal tablets which I bought in Iceland at Jurtaapótek.

Do you recommend any other vitamins, supplement or remedies. I would love to hear your opinion. 

Healing RA naturally

Trying to heal RA naturally takes a lot of research on the internet. Unfortunately the doctors are so reluctant to advise their patient to do anything other than take drugs. For example when we had decided to try to have a baby, I went to my doctor to get guidelines for the next steps. I got advice how to quit on my meds but nothing else except he told me that I could come back if the pain would be really bad and then he would get me started on prednisone. 

For next months I didn't do any research nor tried different diets to keep the RA down. We just kept trying for a baby and hoping for the best. The baby making is taking a longer time than we expected so I have started to search on the internet for information  about how to keep RA down naturally. And I just wished that my doctor would guide me in this search because there's a lot of crap out there. You have to be able to distinguish between the crap and the good stuff. When you are a newbie to this like I'm. I find it at a time confusing.

I recently found a website that I think is trustworthy it is called Alternative RA treatments.  They seem to cover a lot of alternative treatments for RA. I'm excited to read up because I'm trying to decide which alternative treatments I should try. I don't want to waste my money on something that is a nonsense. 

Do you recommend any special treatment for RA? I would love to hear your opinion. 

Day 6 Letting go

One thing which I have to learn is to let go. When I'm off the medicines I will not be able to do all of the things I want to do or need to do. For instance to day I really needed to clean my house and fold clothes. I also had to eat healthy food and do my exercises. I can't do both in one day. For people with arthritis you know exactly what I'm talking about. When you have RA then there comes days when you just can't do all of the things you are supposed to do even though you don't have a job or are a student. 

That is hard, it is so hard not being able to do things you want to do and need to do. On days like that, I feel like I'm not trying hard enough, I should be able to it if I just tried harder. I feel guilty because I'm not doing the house chores and other stuff that is hanging over me. 

Today was my first day but hopefully not the last day that I tried to LET GO. This morning when I woke up and looked around the mess around the house I decided to LET GO. It's more important that I prepare my healthy meals and do my exercises. So that was what I did. I looked on the mess and the unfolded clothes and thought: this will all be here when I have done my exercises and eaten healthy food. If I have extra energy afterward I will do it then. Turned out when I had finished my exercise and the cooking, I was done for the day, I didn't have any extra energy.

How I'm feeling now?

Relieved and glad that I did my exercises and ate healthy food. A little bit guilty of the messy house and the unfolded clothes but I'm trying hard not be it. It is more important that I do things that benefit my health rather than the concentrating on keeping the house tidy.

Day 3 was better

My right feet is not my friend. I continued to have pain in my ankle and knee. I can't help it but when the pain gets worse I just want to run to the nearest pharmacy and get my metroexate. I keep telling my self it is all going to be worth it when we have a baby. It's just hard on days like these when the pain is coming back and I know it's only the beginning. 

I have trouble doing my exercises when my foot is in such a state. I bicycled but I haven't done the home work-outs. I'm going to try to do them tonight. 

The food-issue is also giving my hard time. I don't know whats up with me obsession about food. It is ONLY 30 DAYS that I'm not going to eat unhealthy food. I'm still allowing me to have candy days once a week. Never the less I have been sulking past two days over the fact that I can't stuff my face with unhealthy food. I'm trying to remember when food came to be such a issue for me and why. It didn't be a problem for me. I just ate my food on dinner time and didn't think about food between meals. Maybe it's a good idea to go there. Try to find WHEN food started to become such a issue and WHY I started to measure my happy with food. 

More about food. I was so low on fruit for my smoothie this morning. Determined to stick to the meal plan and went through the fridge to find food for the smoothie. I found dates, a cucumber, avocado, spinach, ground almonds, chi seeds, coconut water and carob powder. I'm not much of a cook. Before I moved in with my boyfriend I did minimum cooking. When we started to live together he did all the cooking for the first two years. It is safe to say when it comes to the kitchen, I'm no expert. You can see the result to the right. I'm not going to sugarcoating it tasted like green cream. I wouldn't recommend it. But I ate it all, it had a lot of healthy ingredients and I stuck to the meal plan. 

What I did to tackle the pain today

Sulk and cry (didn't do much good)

Ate mostly raw

Did 40 minutes of 10 minute solution: Target Toning for Beginngers

Took one parkodin

Had a quiet night (had tickets to a concert but decided to stay home)

I don't whether it was the Target toning or the painkillers but I felt better in the evening

Arthritis blogs

I´m new to blogging, I´m new to exploring my disease. When I first got sick I just took my medicine and tried to exercised and eat healthy food. I did hardly any research on psoriasis arthritis. I think the main reason was that I was just so horrible sick that I needed all my energy to everyday tasks. I didn't have anything left for researching. 

This time is different. I'm not as sick so I have energy left to do the research. And this time I want to understand what is happening and what can I do to prevent the flares. I also want to interact with other people with arthritis and learn their strategy to deal with arthritis. Therefore I have spent last days exploring arthritis blogs. I have found quite few and I'm trying to pick some for a daily read. ANY RECOMMENDATION? I think I'm looking for blogs that are focused on ways to fight the arthritis because I have never given up the hope. I truly believe that it's possible to get rid of arthritis. I don't know how but at least I think I can make a difference. What I'm trying to say is that I want to fight back, I want to do everything I can to fight of the stupid arthritis. I want my life back.

Day 2 was horrible

The only good thing about it was I stuck to the meal plan even though I went to the mall. I couldn't do all of my exercise for the day because of the stupid arthritis. It flared up after noon in my right foot and I have been barley able to walk around to day. So I have been in a foul mood all day. 

The pain hasn't been so bad since I went of the meds. I have  been having trouble sleeping and I have had to take painkillers in order to sleep. So far the pain hasn't been so bad in the daytime until  to day. I have been so frustrated over it. I can't believe that the horrible pain is back. I get really nervous  on days like this. I really want to have a baby but it's hard being of the medicines and I wonder how long we have to wait for it. 

Getting rid of the pain:

I stayed in the sofa all day and watched TV

I drank my ginger broth
I ate only raw food

I took a lot of painkillers

Sadly it didn't do much

I'm glad this day is almost over, hopefully tomorrow is going to be better. 

Making food

I got  Ani's raw food kitchen from my mother in law for Christmas present. I haven't cooked or made a lot from it YET. I really like the book. It's a good start for people like me who want to explore the wonders of raw food. What I like most about raw food is the fact that there's no cooking involved.  I hate waiting for the water to start boiling, standing and stir in the pot or for the oven to hot enough. 

For supper tonight I made Ginger Almond Nori Roll with Garden Paté. It was delicious. It took about half an hour to make it and they were so pretty.

 

My husband made biscotti to night. I think I have never ever tried biscotti before. They were surprisingly good. 

At last but not least I made ginger"magic"broth. I got the recipe from my father and his wife. They have been brewing it this winter. It is tasty and when properly done it burns your throat when you drink it. I call it the ginger"magic"broth because it did wonder for my arthritis. I was pretty bad of the arthritis in December. I had everyday pain, had trouble sleeping because of it and I had some trouble walking around. You know just the usual for folks with arthritis. In January I went for a month visit to Iceland and stayed with my Dad. I drank the ginger"magic"broth maybe every other day and oh boy og boy, the difference. The pain went form 7 to 1-2 and I stopped taking painkillers and could sleep. When I came back home I started to brew it my self. The broth isn't as effective when I make it but I still get a little bit better of my arthritis.

 

Ginger"magic"broth

2 liters water

320 g ginger

50 ml lemon juice

60ml agave syrup 

4 g mint 

Chop the ginger, squeeze the lemons, put everything in the pot and boil for an hour. Pour the broth through sieve. Store in a fridge.   

 

My story

I'm 29 years old

I'm married

I'm a teacher
I'm from Iceland
I'm currently living in Chapel Hill, NC

I developed arthritis the summer of 2004. I started to experience some direct membrane swelling or I thought I was in July. Two months later I couldn't walk, had great difficulty moving my hands and the most severed pain I had ever experience. I didn't know it was possible to be in so much pain.   

I don't know why it took the doctor so long to put me on proper medicine. Maybe it was my age after all I was only 23 years old. The months went by and I did nothing but get worse. Every dag I woke up, I was worse than the day before. My arthritis started in my right ankle with pain and impaired mobility then gradually it found the way up to the knee, the thigh, the hip next it was the hand then the shoulder, neck. The next stop for the arthritis was my face, I got in my jaws, my ears, my eyebrows then the arthritis continued to the left side and did the same thing there. Basically I think I got it in every muscle attachment of my body and in the joints as well. For you people which have arthritis you know what I experienced, you know the the pain, the impaired mobility that follows, the anxiety and despair. I was so scared those months which I woke up worse than the day before. I didn't know what was going on, nothing seemed to work and the pain was killing me. I couldn't sleep because of the pain, I cried almost every day out of pain and I thought my life was over. It's very hard to live a normal life when you are in such agony. 

My family and friends were worried sick about me specially since my conditions only got worse. My best friends' mother recommended that I would go and see her doctor. I did so and that was truly the best thing that I could do. The new doctor put me on methotrexate and I started gradually to feel better. The arthritis slowly went to a remission. It took  three years for me to get back on my feet. The year 2007 was the year when I stopped being scared because the pain wasn't longer killing me and I could walk and use my hands to do things. Even though I still had arthritis and couldn't do certain things and still experienced some pain now and then, I knew I would be able to live fairly normal life. 

I started to work  as a teacher the fall 2008. I was lucky both with my class and colleagues and I had a wonderful time teaching. I worked 100% which was to much, I could do my job but there wasn't much left for the rest of my life. I was frustrated and glad that winter, glad that I could work and frustrated that I didn't have the body to do more than just work. 

I got married the following summer and week after the wedding we moved to Chapel Hill, NC. We started soon to talk about having baby's and in December 2009 I started to go off my meds. That took three months then we had to wait another three months so we didn't start to try for a baby until June 2010. I was terrified by the thought of going of the meds because I hadn't forgot the pain and how much of a hell it was in the beginning but we both really want to start a family. Therefore I'm willing to be off the meds in the hope that we're going to have a baby.

The baby thing has taken longer time to achieve than we suspected. I have been surprisingly good of the arthritis, most of the year 2010. However in October I started to get rather bad and get worse by every week. We have scheduled appointment with a fertility clinic in April. Hopefully we don't have to wait long for a little baby. 

In the meantime I'm going to blog about the journey that's ahead of me.