More wonderful medical news

Of course, I get all the fun stuff. I have both rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia. It never ceases to amaze me that some people do not know what either are. Yes, Virginia there are disgustingly healthy people out there who do not know about yucky unhealthy stuff.

So it overjoys me to read new research about my ailments. Especially when I find research that says the really lucky people who have both RA and fibro, have many more problems with RA than people without fibro.

One article is titled: Fibromyalgia Symptoms May Mimic High Disease Activity in Patients With Rheumatoid Arthritis. That title sort of says it all doesn't it? So even if I don't really have high disease activity, I will just feel like I do.

This article is from Egypt and is titled: The Impact of fibromyalgia on disease assessment in rheumatoid arthritis. I has some lovely charts and tables that compile the list of issues.

Table 2. Somatic manifestations of studied rheumatoid arthritis patients.

Somatic manifestations percentage (%)	Patients		P value
	RAF (25)	RA (25)
Widespread pain	100	28	less than 0.001
Sleep disturbance	68	32	0.011
Fatigue	92	52	0.002
Morning stiffness	56	36	0.156
Headache	56	24	0.021
Depression	88	40	less than 0.001
Anxiety	72	40	less than 0.001
Parasthesia	76	32	0.002
Cognitive symptoms	56	16	0.003
Dysmenorrhea	20	20	1
Irritable bowel syndrome	16	4	0.157

RAF: rheumatoid arthritis with concomitant fibromyalgia, RA: rheumatoid arthritis.

When I was diagnosed with both RA and fibro, my doctor told me I probably would not be able to tell which ailment caused which pain. Sometimes I can but sometimes I can't. And sometimes I just don't care.

But now that I know fibro makes my RA feel worse, I'm not going to suck it up. I think I should switch to chronic whininess. I think chronic whininess outweighs chronic pain. Some research news inspires whininess.

Deep thoughts in the middle of the night

Insomnia, partly caused by fibromyalgia which gives me fatigue and insomnia, causes deep thoughts in the middle of the night. Sometimes I actually remember these thoughts to ponder them further.

So what occurred to me last night was that my most significant health issues to me is no longer cancer. Cancer has definitely settled back to lurk but no longer dominates my life. I get to go to extra doctors, because of my medical history, we need to be sure, but cancer is not the focus. This is  nice mind set. I don't have the need to dwell on it in the middle of the night. Nor do I feel the need to dwell on it. Cancer is not worthy of any stress.

Back in July I saw my medical oncologist for my annual follow up. She took me off Femara after five years. The thought process was that Femara has not been shown to have additional benefit after five years and it could be contributing to my joint pains. But she said I could restart it if I felt stressed about potential recurrence. I didn't think that would be a problem and I am not stressed. And I might  have less joint pains than before.

Also my thyroid cancer has not been problematic. Its just there and I have extra blood work because of it. But its not a stressor.

However my rheumatoid and fibromyalgia tend to rule my life. If I bend wrong or spend too long out and about, they remind me they are there. Or I can not be doing anything and they tell me they rule my body. And fibro keeps me up at night.

Something is going to do me in at some point but I am not going to worry about it. Cancer doesn't deserve to stress me out. It doesn't deserve anything. Its just a piece of crap anyway. I am not going to waste my life worrying about cancer any more than I already have.

Maybe I'll get a good night's sleep tonight.

Blocking out life

Sometimes I feel I need to ignore life and the rest of the world and focus on my ever growing list of ailments. Its not that I want to, its that sometimes my body insists on being the focus. Like the past few days. And probably the next few days.

I have many other things I would like to do but I have to focus on my health. I will fit in other 'stuff' around my health crap. And it really is crap right now.

I have a feeling I did some damage to my knee, how much I will learn more on Wednesday. It hasn't been contributing basic things like flexibility and stability to the rest of my body for the past few days. This means I can't go to the gym. Actually I don't dare go to the gym. But I really want to go. I think exercise will help me deal with stress. And I have blood work this week as well as two other doctor appointments. Right now I am getting blood work done every two weeks.

I also broke down and succumbed to pressure from my new therapist to try the new fibromyalgia support group. I did point out that I do have multiple ailments and fibromyalgia is one of the less challenging ones to me at this point. I mean its there. It causes me pain, fatigue, and, my favorite, insomnia. It isn't progressively causing damage to my body or lurking in the background, threatening to recur like some of the others.

I was told that the fibromyalgia group should help provide 'coping' strategies. I agreed to go once to see if these 'coping' strategies are really covered and potentially show any benefit for me. But my cynical self doubts that.

I am just stressed, anxious, in pain, tired, and a few other things so life isn't as much fun right now. Call me a cranky cynic right now.