Joint Swelling and Juvenile Arthritis

People who don't have Juvenile Arthritis find it hard to understand what it is actually like having swollen joints. 

I am not only talking about the actually joint but what it does to my body.

To put it simply, it screws everything up.

Living with a hidden disease is hard as I've said many times before but what makes it harder is that you are trying hard and volunteering my life to supporting children living with Arthritis and my joints just keep getting in the way.

This is my third month of elbow swelling and this isn't unusual at all. What is unusual is that it's only happening in one joint. This is not normal but I'm very happy that this is the case currently.

When a joint in mu body swells up it first creates stiffness. Due to this stiffness that I have in my elbow currently I am unable to brush by hair or even wash my hair without funny head movements that lucky I'm the only one that can see. 

 With that stiffness becomes horrible pain. This pain isn't the sort of pain that you get with a paper cut or a broken bone, it's the sort of pain that NEVER LEAVES YOU ALONE!

It's always there and even with pain killers it still just doesn't leave!

If these two things stick around long enough along come the tiredness. My body at this stage is usually fighting against itself even more and getting really confused and my body just has enough and wants me to sleep ALL THE TIME.

With this tiredness like normal tiredness, you become "cranky" but what happens to me when that happens?

LUPUS! Yes the wonder other autoimmune disease that I have. 

Lupus kicks in and that is when it's very hard to control. (Read my other blog to learn more about my Lupus)

When I was a young child and living with swollen joints for most of the year I didn't suffer with Lupus as well. This is why being 22 years old and getting a swollen joint is worse, but I will always keep smiling and supporting children living with Arthritis.

Until next time,

Keep smiling as you never know whos day you'll brighten.

Why does my Arthritis hurt in different weather?

I have recently stumbled across my new favourite science channel SciShow. 

Now before we go any further I do enjoy watching the occasional fluffy bunny eating a carrot video like the one below. www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDT4bHBtK4g

But if I'm really going to spend time trolling through YouTube I would rather learn something, and that's how I stumbled across these guys. Their videos are not only informative but the questions are asked by real people from all over the world. 

One of their videos was of most interest to me as they were speaking about a problem I live with daily. The changing weather and my Arthritis. You can watch it here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=86L4oRORREY

For years now I've known that the changing weather from hot to cold has played a part in why some days I can't move because of pain and others I'm free as a bird (sort of). I would have to be admitted to hospital during these cooler months for operations to remove Arthritis swelling and other procedures.

The video explains that our body genes can change expression or in other words turn on and off depending on the season. 

Researches in the UK and Germany studied over 16,000 peoples genomes, using blood and fat samples collected at different times throughout the year. Now if you didn't know there are different fats, proteins and other gooey stuff in our bodies that change throughout the year. This meant that 5,000 genes out of 23,000 genes were more active during cooler weather.

To put this all into practice they tried the study on Mice by using their ARNTL genomes, which suppresses inflammation. It turned out that during the winter months it was not suppressed, which meant that there was more active Arthritis during that time. 

If you want to know more about why your Arthritis may be different during different seasons please speak with your local doctor or Rheumy.

Needless to say I learnt a lot about my own disease in this video and it's great to know that someone out there is trying to find a cure for Arthritis.

Until next week,

Keep smiling as you never know whos day you'll brighten.