When you have arthritis, buttoning a shirt or fastening a clasp can be a pain in the butt. So is folding laundry with achy joints, blow drying your hair, or even signing paperwork. But then there’s actual pain that can occur in your buttocks — and it may actually be caused by arthritis. The buttock is a large area, with many different structures within it, explains Claudette Lajam, MD, orthopedic surgeon with NYU Langone in…
Most types of arthritis cause swelling, but the swelling of dactylitis is something else all together. “My fingers feel like they are going to burst,” psoriatic arthritis (PsA) patient Emily Terbrock told us on Facebook. This incredibly painful, red, and hot swelling can cause fingers to look like sausages, giving dactylitis the nickname “sausage fingers.” Dactylitis, though, can be distinguished from regular joint swelling. “Dactylitis is the swelling of an entire digit — finger or…
Learn about how functional disability is often one of the early signs that you can have rheumatoid arthritis. As rheumatoid arthritis (RA) progresses, it can take quite a toll on your quality of life. Joint pain, stiffness, and inflammation worsen, and, in turn, make the normal activities of everyday life — walking around your house, taking a shower, getting dressed in the morning — a lot more challenging. While that might come as no surprise…
When the average person hears the word arthritis, chances are they think of osteoarthritis. Although there are over 100 different kinds of arthritis, osteoarthritis is the most common and well-known. It is largely a mechanical disorder that’s often caused by overuse or normal wear and tear on the joints as people get older. (However, osteoarthritis can occur at any age — the idea that osteoarthritis only affects older adults is a common myth.) Click Here…
Fibromyalgia – Symptoms and Causes Overview Fibromyalgia is a disorder characterized by generalized musculoskeletal pain accompanied by fatigue, sleep, memory, and mood problems. Researchers believe that fibromyalgia amplifies painful sensations by affecting how the brain and spinal cord treat painful and non-painful signals. Symptoms often begin after an event, such as pain, physical trauma, surgery, infection, or severe psychological stress. In other cases, symptoms gradually accumulate over time without a single trigger event. Women are…
“Fall Blends” oil pastel by Shelley Lockwood Fall was one of my favorite seasons. Some days, damp ones to be more precise are rarely pleasant or enjoyable. Last week the dull ache got less dull and today the coldness to the core started. As the cold slowly seeped deeper and deeper, the pain spread and intensified. Other than applying some heat and layering up, there isn’t much to do except waiting. Round and round it…
It’s like a never-ending loop…get stressed, get sick, get sore, become more stressed, become sicker, become sorer. Then rinse and repeat. The more I’m stressed, the less I sleep, the more likely I am to get sick. I know it, I live it, I have accepted it and over the past year, I’ve become better at dealing with it. Click here to Get this or Visit Fibromyalgia Store I had made so much progress physically and…
Some flares are pretty, fibro–flares are not. An important part of my learning to LIVE with fibromyalgia has been trying to pinpoint my personal triggers of fibro-flares. In other words what makes all my fibro symptoms go from manageable to really, really bad. Sometimes so bad that I literally can’t stay upright. Some of my flare-ups have lasted days, some have lasted weeks. Before I had a better understanding of what I was dealing with I…
There it was again…the “F” ball and from a second Doctor no less. I had no idea what this fibromyalgia was but figured I should probably read up on IT. It would have to wait until later. More importantly, I had to get back to work. Pushed through the fog while dragging my invisible cement blocks, painted my smile on, and headed back in. Later that night, I sat down (finally) to read up on…
Last month was awful. Not because of family, not because of friends, not because of anything that I can control but because of something that is a part of my life, like it or not. Throughout this last year, I have done my best to eliminate negativity from my life. I find myself “testing” more and more of the self-help advice floating around out there. Some of it works, some of it doesn’t. Either way,…