Eat well, feel well

I am quite a small woman (4 foot 10 to be precise, so I'm sure there are some people out there who would have other words for my lack of height) and a number of years ago, I started to put on weight because of the steroids I was on for my arthritis and it has been a bit of an uphill battle ever since.

I'm not really into weighing myself or obsessing about it, but at the same time, I try to eat well, cook fresh homemade meals and exercise and stay fit, without going mental and possibly injuring myself.

When people see me eating a bar of chocolate (as I said, I'm not a health nut and I do watch certain things, but I will have a Kinder Bueno or a Bounty if I want it), I can sometimes see them judging me, thinking ‘well she'd be smaller if she ate better and did more exercise’, but you never know what's going on in someone else’s life.

I am relatively fit and I do go through fits and starts of exercise and diet, but because of the nature of my work and the unpredictability of my disease, it is very hard to schedule things in like classes or gym visits and I might be fine on Tuesday, but wake up on Wednesday with an agonisingly sore left hip, a gammy right knee and a swollen ankle.

On the other hand, I could wake up and feel well enough to get a walk and a half hour of intensive yoga in before I leave for work.

Along this vein, I try to do what I can when I can, but I try to avoid extreme exercise or diet programmes which involve drastic life changes. This isn't because I'm lazy or non-committal, it is because it is simply not feasible with all of the other factors that I have to consider.

The above statement or ones carrying similar sentiments are hard for extremely health conscious vegans or vigorous exercisers and gym bunnies to get their heads around, as they seem to think that everything is a matter of perspective and will power - sometimes there are other factors.

In many ways, my arthritis is an invisible disease, I look and sound fine (well not always, I am delightfully prone to looking scarily pale and washed out when I'm in pain), but in reality I might not be able to write a few sentences because there is so much fluid in my fingers or I might scream out in pain when I stand up from a chair because my joints have seized up and decided to attack my own body.

So to do what I can to keep healthy and fit, I try little things in moderation, like eating homemade fresh healthy food and/or doing as much exercise as I can without risking injury.

In terms of food, I am a great believer in eating fresh food with meals that you can make from scratch yourself - if you can't recreate something from a menu at home, I would be dubious as to what is actually in it.

My Mam makes everything from scratch and always has. Our house growing up was always filled with the delectable smells of fresh baking (we were always jealous of other kids who got to have sweets or fizzy drinks, but there would always have been things like eclairs, scones, brown bread and cakes or biscuits, which Mam had just whipped up). It's not that there wasn't any sugar in our diets, but at least she knew what was in the food we were eating and there were no nasty MSG or E numbers to consider.

Likewise, if I was to make something like spaghetti bolognese, I'd do it the way Mam does it - using fresh ingredients, tomatoes and a mixture of herbs to create a tasty and wholesome meal and if I had lots of vegetables, I'm much more likely to make a big batch of soup than I am to let them go off and have to throw them away.

I would also go beyond that by making my own home made yoghurt and fresh fruit compote, but unlike my wonderful mammy, I am not blessed when it comes to baking (as my boyfriend will attest to, I once made what was meant to be a lovely Victorian sponge cake and he still describes it to this day as a large deformed scone – I will point out that he conveniently forgets about the successful birthday cakes I have created since).

Over the years, I have noticed people looking at me with that judgemental sidelong glance and they think they are helping when they tell you gently or harshly (depending on their personality) to do more exercises, eat less crap or embrace a more active lifestyle.

I do what I can, when I can and considering that a lot of my food is not processed and is homemade, I think I'm doing pretty well. I'm also not all that caught up about my weight, I do go through bouts of losing weight, usually when I'm less busy and can dedicate more time to the things like daily walks, yoga or pilates or aqua aerobics or a bit of jog/walking (interval training) and I'm also stricter when it comes to things like eating fruit, vegetables and nuts or seeds instead of all of the lovely treats in Centra. 

People would comment when I've lost weight, but it's not something I keep track of - we don't have a weighing scales, as I think it can become an obsessive thing, but if my jeans are a little looser or a dress looks a bit better then yay and if not, ah well.

I was a little bit reluctant to do a post like this, because you are literally opening the flood gates for the nay-sayers and do-gooders, but hey, on the other hand it might give people pause for thought and make them think about what someone's going through in their own life or what else they have to contend with before they make their 'well meaning' remark about someone else's way of life.

Dealing with arthritis at a young age

When people hear the word arthritis, it generally conjures up images of an elderly man or woman with gnarled hands and stiff joints - at the very mention of the word, the mental association is automatically made between it and old people. 

As a general rule of thumb, people don't think of someone young, active and at the peak of their life. 

This is where my story comes in and more often than not, when I tell people that I have arthritis, they are firstly shocked and then intrigued, because they want to know my secret - how do I look so healthy, how did they not know that I suffered from this terrible affliction and why does such a horrible disease affect someone so young?

I am 27-years-old, but my journey with arthritis goes back quite a few years. To start off, I will say this - I have Psoriatic Arthritis, I've had it since I was 18, it's genetic and because of the disease modification drugs that I inject into my stomach each week, it will never get worse, thankfully. 

Because of this, believe it or not, I am quite lucky, because if I had Rheumatoid Arthritis, by now my career would be a distant dream, getting around, either on foot or by car, would be almost impossible, my joints would be visibly changed from, say ten years ago and I would be considering life in a wheelchair with limited mobility, strength and range of movement, as a fate that would be, sadly, not too far away.   

Luckily (and I know that it seems bizarre to say this when I have a terrible, life limiting, auto-immune disease), this is the best of the types of arthritis to have and for that, I am truly thankful and grateful. 

I have had psoriasis, mainly on my scalp and around my ears, since I was about nine-years-old and when I was 18, I started to develop problems when walking uphill. A doctor in my GP's clinic thought it was the way I walked and I was given orthotics, which, as you can imagine, made little or no difference to my arthritis. 
 
Walking uphill or across challenging terrain was getting more difficult and I seemed to get out of breath quickly, despite the fact that I was a weensy size 6  and quite fit (I know, unhealthily small, but I am only 4"10, so I didn't seem out of proportion) and when I was in third year in college in the University of Limerick, my life was forever altered. It is worth noting that all of this started around the time of my Leaving Certificate, so possibly the most stressful time of my life, or at least the start of it. 

I had gone on Erasmus in Norway and just a month or so before I was due to return home for Christmas, I woke up one morning and two of my toes were purple and looked like tiny cocktail sausages (sounds odd I know). Having a history of sleep walking, I presumed that I had violently kicked the wall in my sleep and broken my toes, so I got an X-Ray, which revealed that there were no broken bones. 

A Norwegian girl who I was friends with then mentioned her own Psoriatic Arthritis and after a feverish bout of Googling, I realised that the symptoms were all too familiar and alarm bells were ringing loud and clear. 

Upon my return home, my own GP was quite concerned and I was sent to a rheumatologist, where I was diagnosed and put on a course of treatment. 

They started me on steroids to halt the acceleration of the disease and methotrexate tablets, but I was soon put on Metoject and Enbrel injections, which I had to administer to myself as injections once a week. 

I am a queasy person and the first time I injected, I was alone in the house and I can quite honestly say, it was awful. Thankfully, I am now rather used to it, even blase to be honest and the only major downsides are that the injections make me feel nauseous and now, after years of injecting, I have horrible lumps and scars all around my stomach near the injection sites. 

Because I was so young at the point of diagnosis, unfortunately for me, I seemed to present the consultants with an exciting medical opportunity and for many years, my dosage was toyed with in an effort to study the effects and see how far my disease would spread - I was their guinea pig and the fact that my life had to be put on hold every time they played with my medication didn't seem to bother them. 

This meant that even though the arthritis originally only affected my toes, ankles, wrists and fingers, it now affects all of my joints and is most severe in my spine, hips and knees. 

Five years ago, arthritis was something in the background of my life, now it is to the forefront and is a pivotal consideration for most of my major life decisions and the tiny trivial everyday things, like what size handbag I use and how far I park my car away from the shops. 

When my arthritis flares up (sadly, more often that you'd think and this intensifies if I'm under pressure or particularly stressed), things that people twice my age take for granted, like being able to hold a mug of tea or coffee, opening a jar or carrying a bag, all present themselves as mammoth tasks, that not only seem very difficult, but are often, genuinely impossible. 

Because my arthritis isn't really visible, this has led to awkward public situations where older people, who are often perfectly fit and have better joints than I do, have asked me to give up my seat on a bus or train, give me a dirty look if I take an available seat while they are queuing or even complain if I get table service in a restaurant that doesn't typically offer that service - this is why I will never judge someone without knowing the facts, you have no idea what someone is going through or what kind of inner battle they are fighting. 

Whenever I am going through a flare up, I feel useless, pathetic and feeble enough without someone I don't know making me feel worse. 

Sometimes the pain is so bad that I can't untie my own shoelaces, I can't open a bottle of water or even hold my own book to read a few chapters - this is the reality of having arthritis - it is horrible and demeaning and I genuinely wouldn't wish it on my own worst enemies. 

Luckily, I have a fantastic support network around me, with wonderful friends, family and my boyfriend - without them, I really don't know how I would manage and even from a mental health point of view, I think it would be impossible to stay positive without their kindness, support and help, with even the smallest of things. 

They are patient, understanding and loving - sometimes it's driving me somewhere if I'm too sore to get behind the wheel and other times, it's just giving me a hug when I'm a bit down, but no matter what it is, it's knowing that they are there, behind me, to catch me if I fall (literally or metaphorically) or knowing that they will wipe away my tears when I can't muster up the energy to smile and the tears flow relentlessly. 

I am quite open about having arthritis, I mean I don't make a huge deal about it, but I don't hide it either and what I've noticed lately is that my openness has spurred other people on to talk about their own diagnosis, because sadly a lot of people do associate the disease with a deep rooted shame. 

I hope that this entry makes people think before they judge someone, that they might find out what's going on before making assumptions and take somebody's inner battles into consideration before making what they think is a light or witty remark, which could really hurt someone who is already feeling vulnerable.