Elizabeth Gilbert: Olé!!

I got this video from “Creative Chronic Babes” and found it appropriate for just about anyone. Elizabeth Gilbert is funny, soothing and inspiring. Although you may not end up ROFL, it’s still a must see if you enjoy a great speaker and want to feel inspired. Sit back and enjoy.

Kathlene Turner: From Turning Heads to Turning Her Life Upside Down

Kathleen Turner and Rheumatoid Arthritis

We know her as a sexual siren who inspired us by her beauty, intellect and charm from “Romancing the Stone”.  And she scared the wits out of us in “War of the Roses”.  For those not following her career, she pretty much dropped out of the lime light for a lengthy period of time. What happened?

She was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis!!

Here’s a little snip it of life for Kathleen during that time:

In my mid-40s, I reached the jolting realization – after decades of assuming I was fertile – that I couldn’t get pregnant again. We went to see infertility specialists to ask about in-vitro fertilisation, but they told me my eggs were probably no longer viable.

Next, we considered using a younger woman’s eggs and Jay’s sperm. However, we would probably have had to use a surrogate mother – and that made me feel incredibly left out. In the end, the obstacles seemed insurmountable, but that didn’t make the fact that I couldn’t have another child any less devastating. For a time, I felt as if I wasn’t a woman any more.

While all this was going on, I had also discovered I was suffering from a severe form of rheumatoid arthritis, which was a complete and total nightmare.

I’d always felt I could do almost anything that required physical strength and skill. I took pride in doing my own stunts. And suddenly all of this was stripped away and my body could respond only with excruciating pain whenever I tried to move it.

My joints swelled up so badly that I could hardly walk. Some days I was in so much agony I couldn’t even climb out of bed. Jay was very, very supportive. He must have been terribly fed up with my problems, though. The greatest shock to me was how I lost belief in my own attractiveness, my own desirability, everything.

With my loss of confidence went a loss of sexuality. That’s a strain on a marriage, a strain that is multilayered.

My condition made sex difficult because, physically, everything hurt so badly that it was so hard to feel sexy, hard for me to be a good partner, hard to be intimate. There was no position that didn’t hurt like hell.

When my pain from the illness was at its worst, I discovered that vodka killed it quite wonderfully. I didn’t want to take painkillers because I didn’t like the way they mucked up my mind, so I used alcohol instead. Stupidly, I didn’t consider that alcohol mucks up your mind, too.

The drinking fed a self-destructive spiral. Like the drugs I was taking for the arthritis, alcohol was a depressant – and when I took them in combination, their depressive effects multiplied. I started to question whether life was really worth living.-Daily Mail

Kathleen Turner is now back in the lime light and spending much of her energy on Broadway.  She’s also written a book about love and life with Rheumatoid Arthritis as well as her career as a Hollywood star.

Kathleen Turner

When your disease gets you down

Pain and Depression can go hand in hand

When it comes to chronic disease, we all have setbacks. Since last Wednesday I’ve been experiencing a flare. It’s honestly the first that I’ve had in a very long time that was quite this bad. It could be due to stress or medications or both. Compared to how I used to feel before alternative medications, this flare is a breeze. I can still lift my shoulders, tie my shoes and walk without wincing. Flares can vary so you never know what you’re going to get. For me, having Rheumatoid Arthritis can sometimes feel less of a joint disease and more of a systemic disease. For those of you that don’t know, RA can affect the organs just as much as the joints and it can mimic other diseases like Lupus.  I can see what’s happening to my joints….my fingers get more swollen than usual, but when it comes to my organs I can only guess what’s happening.

These last few days I’ve been getting up in the morning and feeling like I’ve smoked a pack of cigarettes. I don’t even know what that would feel like but I’m guessing this feeling is similar. There’s a sense of congestion and heaviness, accompanied with some discomfort to breathing especially if I bend over and especially when I first get up. Just like my joints, this feeling lessens as the day goes on. There are times that it feels like my heart is beating harder or having trouble….could it be Pericarditis? I simply don’t know. And there are moments when my sides have dull aches as if someing inside me is a bit more swollen than normal. Times like these I can only guess what’s going on. Without insurance, there is no way of knowing without going to the doctor and paying an arm and a leg.  Seeing that I can barely afford my supplements on my own, I simply can’t afford a doctor’s visit. Besides, I know the answer to the problem…..reduce the inflammation in my body and everything will be solved, including my sour mood.

If only it were that easy. I could take some Prednisone which sits in my cupboard. But after a year of trying to get off that stuff, no thanks. I’d rather not feel even more moody than I already feel which is what Prednisone would do to me.  Flares are bound to happen from time to time. I have been lucky to avoid having a flare for the past six months or so. I’m also lucky that this one isn’t all that bad. When I did have a doctor I had the same complaints: chest pain and congestion, rib pain, organ pain, and just about everything and everywhere hurt. Knowing that I have the least amount of pains now that I don’t have a doctor, it makes it all the more simpler to not worry and just keep going on with my life. A flare will eventually subside.

Extreme tiredness is another problem that accompanies most chronic diseases. It doesn’t seem to matter how many hours of sleep I get, I’m still tired. I can say however, the more I sleep, generally the less pain I wake up with. Depression is the other thing that pulls me down. People close to me try to perk me up and they say, “Don’t let yourself get depressed.” It’s hard to have that kind of self control. You go to lift something and you realize you don’t have the strength. You plan a day of activities to realize you don’t have the energy. You have aches and pains and have no way of relieving them. People want to spend time with you but you don’t want to spend time with them…..you are at a loss for words and feel like you might fall asleep in their presence. You find yourself stuttering. You spend more than your share of time in the bathroom to accomplish nothing. (Inflammation of the intestines can make you very constipated). People cook you food and you barely eat. I think faking the way I really feel takes its toll and adds to the depression. People ask on the phone, “How are you doing?” You answer, “Fine and how are you?” But the real answer would depress other people. “I feel extremely tired and sad that my weekend was taken away from me.” People don’t want to hear that so you hold it in and take one for the team, the chronically ill team that is.

What’s it like to have a chronic disease? Well, honestly it really takes it’s toll on your body and spirit,  especially when you’re going through a flare. The pain, the medications, the tiredness….none of it is easy. I can say that since I’ve been treating myself with alternative medications I feel WAY better than before, when I was on chemotherapy drugs and steroids. But even this path isn’t easy for reasons like expense, feeling alone on this particular path, and the amount of pills I have to take can be annoying and tiring.

At first I thought twice about writing an entry like this. After all, it can make people feel uncomfortable. But then I thought, why can’t I just be honest? Why spare other people and hold in these emotions?  Is this too much information? Perhaps it is but I don’t care. At least you know when you come to my blog you’ll get the truth and the real me.  Thanks to all out there, who visit.  You are my support and I appreciate you.

Depressed?

Are you getting too much copper?  Depression is one its many side effects.  Are we getting too much?   Perhaps we are.  It’s in our foods and depending on where you get your water, it may be in that too.

Why drinking water?   The switch from galvanized water pipes to copper water pipes could be the issue.

My initial instinct was to find the foods that were high in copper and eliminate them.  On further investigation however, I learned that zinc helps  remove copper very slowly.  It shouldn’t have been a surprise to me that when I looked up foods that were highest in copper, they were also highest in zinc. Apparently, it’s a delicate balance and the foods we eat understand that balance.  If food like clams have  that precise balance of copper and zinc, then wouldn’t it make sense that our bodies do too?  This is why I think, we probably are getting too much copper due to copper pipes, among other possibilities.  If it’s in the water, even if it’s not in our drinking water, then I would think we’re probably getting too much copper from other sources like restaurants foods, processed foods, etc.

What are the symptoms of too much copper? “Excessive intake of copper can cause abdominal pain and cramps, nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, and liver damage. In addition, some experts believe that elevated copper levels, especially when zinc levels are also low, may be a contributing factor in many medical conditions including schizophrenia, hypertension, stuttering, autism, fatigue, muscle and joint pain, headaches, childhood hyperactivity, depression, insomnia, senility, and premenstrual syndrome.

Postpartum depression has also been linked to high levels of copper. This is because copper concentrations increase throughout pregnancy to approximately twice the normal values, and it may take up to three months after delivery for copper concentrations to normalize. ”

The beginnings of Wilson’s Disease could also be a factor.  But don’t jump to conclusions without getting all the facts. There are benefits of an increased copper intake for some people.

“Short-term increases in the copper intake may help to reduce the fever, swelling and reduced joint mobility among rheumatoid arthritis sufferers. “ On the other hand, too much copper can lead to premature arthritis.

It makes me wonder, knowing that autoimmune diseases are on the rise.  Is copper partly to blame? Knowing as well that copper can lead to neurological issues, would people with neurological diseases benefit from taking zinc?

What traditional medications have I tried?

Just to get the ball rolling, I figured I would mention the medications I have tried so far.

I was on prednisone for a year and methotrexate even longer. These drugs helped me to function again. I admit though, I never let my doctor prescribe more than 10mg of prednisone. I didn’t have insurance when RA first began and the doctor at that time gave me an endless supply. So every day I took 10mg. When I finally saw a rheumatologist four months later, he wanted me OFF the prednisone. He was worried about my health, said it lead to diabetes. At the time I was more worried about functioning, and less worried about long term health. So my doctor and I agreed that I would start methotrexate and wean off. Needless to say, it took an entire year to wean off just 10mg because every time I lessened it, even just 1mg, my fingers would swell up like sausages again, and I’d have trouble walking. Even my nose developed a lump! The methotrexate did in fact make me more functional, but my body was continually deteriorating, developing nodules, and my fingers were ever so slowly turning outward.

Not to go into details, but I had a surgery which took me off of methotrexate and when I went back on mtx, it stopped working as well as it had, which wasn’t that great to begin with. I didn’t want to raise the dose because I had somewhat bad side effects from it. I guess the side effects weren’t worse than the norm, but maybe they were. I always felt like I “flared” the day after mtx, meaning I’d be more swollen, and my hair was always falling out more than I was comfortable with. This was a daily reminder that I was sick. So the whole thing made me dread my weekends (mtx day) and I always felt very depressed.