In The Joint...Part II

The journey to discovery continues as I try to portray my personal joint story here.  Last we left off, I exposed my distal interphalangeal ra joints.

Today, I will move on to proximal interphalangeals and my palmar digitals (refer to hand diagram below). I prefer to call them my joints in keeping with my KISS principles. Who comes up with these crazy names?

I will take a guess here and incorporate the joint on our thumbs, which although it is the joint next to a thumbnail, as part of the proximal interphalangeal family. So, with this theory (the picture here didn't tell me) I have ten members in this family. All of them have been doing the ra swell dance. Honestly though for years and years only the right five members participated in this line dance. It hasn't been until about three years ago that the right side of the family put out an invitation for the left side of the family and they accepted.  Wish I could have intercepted that particular invitation!

So I would like to introduce you to my left handed family members:

Joe here will do the honors for his side of this dysfunctional family group:

"This here is our family wall photo. As you will notice our thumb leads the way with a sufficient amount of inflammation with Jeb and Ted following behind (formally known as the ring and middle finger)." And along with Jeb and Ted comes swollen veins. This I have yet to unravel. I am not sure if it is from so much wrist issues or something else going on. Oh well, if anyone out there has similar issues and has unraveled this mystery...please share.

"Next, we move onto the individual walkway debut of each joint so that the audience can get a close up view for comparison sake."

And as humble and unobtrusive as Joe has been over the years, Josephine has been an entirely different character all together.  She started her intrusion into my life right from the get go. If you have the interest, you can read up on how she (My New RA Story) actually introduced me to ra. Damn her anyway!

Drum roll please.....

And least we not neglect the distol family member....

Most rheumatologists look for the "traditional" signs of ra.  One being, swelling in joints that are symmetrical (meaning the same joint on each side of the body). There are many other symptoms of ra and for a better understanding of this disease, you can read Pub Med Health or research it online.

But as Murphy's law would have it, my joints were lopsided and showed ra primarily on the right side of my body. It was only because, at that time, I had a wonderful general practitioner who immediately honed in on the problem and ordered the correct tests which proved positive. For this I am very grateful.  I can't tell you the hundreds of people that take years and years to get a definitive diagnoses and suffer in the meantime.

Early on I did do lots of things to ease the pain of my finger joints including: hot and cold compresses, paraffin wax baths, and hand splints to help stabilize the joints.  Today I lean more towards only icing them and splints which I use quite often now.

Hmmmmm....have you ever had surgery you may be asking?  Well, no not really. But, I will admit right from the get go that early on and to this day, I have been offered a myriad of surgeries.  My motto with that scenario is....If it ain't broke, don't fix it. I know, I know! Alot of you will be yelling that your surgery helped you. We are all individuals, our health is individual and what works for one may or may not work for another.  And in my particular case, my ortho doc did say that the surgeries would not stop the ra damage.  So why bother is how I felt and still feel.

Now, don't mistake me.  If my fingers get to the point that they stop working, you can rest assured I will then consider surgery.  So far, although they move painfully most often, they still keep moving.

And have I had to make adjustments?  You bet!  I have to modify just about every single thing I do every single moment of every single day.  In fact, that is why I started this blog.  To share how I modified things in the hopes to help others.  Why reinvent the wheel I always say.

So, I hope you have enjoyed meeting my often pain in the....errr...ummmm....joint family!  And until our next meet up at the joint....Moomee has a few departing words.

Lookz atz myz prettyz joint!  Prettyz jointz! Andz noz inflammationz eitherz. Thatz whyz catz rulez!

Yezzzz...I knowz...I knowz!  Butz likez I sayz....Iz aintz goingz onz noz dietz!  Henceforthz, thatz lumpz iz a jointz!  Hearz mez?

Helpful hint: To remove permanent magic marker from skin, use rubbing alcohol. Works every time! Can you tell I was once a mother of teenage children...snicker...snicker.

Pull up your stool for more in the joint:
In the Joint

Spring has sprung!

The pollen is everywhere here! In the air, on the ground, in one's hair and up one's nose.  I am hoping that we will get some rain to wash away this particular batch.  And along with the deluge of pollen has come the humble bumblebee.  Bumblebees are here where I live and I am happy to see this important creature.

I know that my winged friend has been under attack these past few years.  Science isn't exactly sure what or why the bumblebee is having such problems but for whatever reason, they have been fading off.

I really believe that the bumblebee can teach us alot about ourselves. To me the delicate intricacies of this creature reminds me of the intricacies of our immune systems. Science isn't 100% sure if this decline is due to environmental factors, disease impact, or perhaps even a change in the very DNA of this creature.

It all sounds so familiar to me personally. I have read very similar stories about what may trigger autoimmune illnesses: environmental factors, an illness that sets the autoimmune system to permanently continue to fire off inflammatory warriors, or perhaps it is already built into the DNA of our existence.

And so I watch with amazement, awe and a alot of pride the journey of my comrade. Yes, we have much more in common then I would have ever thought.  We are both fighting for our lives!


More reading on spring things:
My RA Garden

In the joint

In my heyday joint stirred up lots of images: being locked up in jail, using the toilet, and yes of course...the long weed thing that one could illegally smoke.

I am surely dating myself with this information but I am proud to be who I am. I look forward to growing older and wiser....wiser being the main focus of my thoughts hence forward.

This post and hopefully more in the future will focus on my joints. Those bony things that ra just loves to devour at times. I think it is important to share my joints because often I wonder if I am alone in this ever continuous attack on my body and in particular on my joints and now tendons. And, I remember early on wanting to have comparisons to look at when I was traveling this ra road. It is true that we know many search engines that can pull up pictures but I have yet to find any resource that details one person's joints from head to toe with ra. This is my intent.

And so here goes....

This little joint is not suppose to be attacked by ra. Ummmmm....I differ in this opinion. First of all it has been attacked since the onset of my illness and second, this particular joint has been given a fancy name for its battle which is supposedly non ra related.

The joint I am referring to is the distal interphalangeal joint. Whewww...what a mouthful :-) This particular little happy camper is located on my right pointer finger (I am so technical).   The ASSH (American Society for Surgery of the Hand) site is a source I recommend you can use with if you plan on having ANY hand surgery at all!

And so this little joint has been battling this war for 14 plus years and has had a crown name of it's own. In fact, 8 of these joints out of 10 are in on the war. Medicine Net describes this phenomenon quite nicely...

"A very common early sign of osteoarthritis is a knobby bony deformity at the smallest joint of the end of the fingers. This is referred to as a Heberden's node, named after a very famous British doctor. The bony deformity is a result of the bone spurs from the osteoarthritis in that joint. Another common bony knob (node) occurs at the middle joint of the fingers in many patients with osteoarthritis and is called a Bouchard's node. Dr. Bouchard was a famous French doctor who also studied arthritis patients at the turn of the last century. The Heberden's and Bouchard's nodes may not be painful, but they are often associated with limitation of motion of the joint. The characteristic appearances of these finger nodes can be helpful in diagnosing osteoarthritis."


I have been blessed with both! Whohooo! And let me tell you, they are painful. I am doing the node dance right now. But I still beg to differ on exactly what these nodes are! In all scientific reports they are labeled under the term osteoarthritis. But I ask, why in the world would these appear in early onset ra? Could it be that so often ra is divided up into nice little compartments under other illnesses names? And perhaps, doesn't this then divert the exact cause of all these illnesses and thus the severity of damage ra can inflict? But alas, that is something that needs to be put into a book not on an itty bitty post here.


But I will give my two cents of guess work here....perhaps because I was deficient in Vitamin D, this contributed to these nodes. Mmmmmm....Murphy's scientific data collection at work here. Common sense that is. Unfortunately vitamin d deficiency was not known until rather recently in autoimmune illnesses. And perhaps had I been tested much earlier in my disease activity, some of the impacts of ra might have been mitigated. Can't say for sure but is an interesting thought for me to ponder.


And so I leave this post with one thought for you...Have I had my vitamin D and calcium levels tested lately? If not, please do so. 


Further Reading:
Vitamin D and RA

Iz dont'z carez whatz thatz doctorz sayz....Moomeez ain't gonnaz goes on noz dietz. 
mmmmmm....looks like sausages!