My not so dirty little secret

Many people don’t know that I have rheumatoid arthritis (RA). I don’t know if I would call it a secret, I just don’t go around telling people. I was diagnosed while in high school. I think it was around my sophomore year. It is hard to say when RA hit me. I remember dealing with pain for a good portion of my life. The medications you are put on can be nasty with horrible side effects. So I have always tried to avoid the doctor for that reason. In high school I had to stop swimming due the severity of the pain. When I became pregnant with Xavier my RA went in remission. It was amazing. It again hit shortly after is his birth. At that point it was mainly pain when it came back no disability. I tried new medications. One being an anti-malaria medication. I stopped taking it because of the nasty side effects. I changed my diet and had great results! Now I am back to almost constant pain in my joints and I am starting to lose motion in them. My diet isn’t to horribly bad but not where it could be. Got to love an EMS diet, constant grazing. One of the not so wonderful things that come with my RA is Reynaud’s. It effects the circulation in your hands in feet. Making them blue and cold. As they get warm they turn bright red and burn. Lovely isn’t it? Sometimes in referred to as the patriotic disease because your hands turn red, white, and blue. So now I have to decide how long to endure the pain before I do something more about it.