Hi all, my name is Judith or Judy, depending on which one you would like to call me!
I’m 46yrs 47 in November
. I was diagnosed with RA in 1987, was put on gold injections which seemed to work for a couple of years. I trained as a nurse which was my career until 2007 which is just after things really took a turn for the worst.
My RA flared up a lot, in fact it was unbearable, the ultrasound showed lots of damage to every joint in by body, lots of mice nibbles on my joints was how my consultant described it lol. I was tried with loads of different Dmard’s; different tabs loads of different combinations. Unfortunately they never worked, I was still just hanging on to my job, but, being a nurse in an NHS hospital you do really have to be strong, moving and handling patients, you have to make sure everybody is safe. Plus I was in so much pain and so so tired
My RA team were fantastic, still are, the big guns in medication came out, in 2006, firstly I was tried on Methotrexate, had bad side effects with that, kidneys etc, so was taken off them, struggling bigly at work in the end it was agreed by the occupational health, my boss, and myself that because I was suffering really badly it would be safer for me as well as the patients, and a lot of other things I was medically retired off from the NHS in 2007.I was then put on Embrel injections every week, which did help a little, but then I was also diagnosed with Fibromyalgia, I’m also a type 1 diabetic that’s not a problem as I was diagnosed in 1971.
Things plodded on, I was coping, just, not able to work, was on a lot of heavy duty painkillers, got badly depressed, so much so I did the awful thing and tried to end it all, I know it was stupid but I know how I felt at that time.
Then in 2010 the Embrel seemed to not work as well as it was doing, my bloods were suffering, things were starting to deteriorate, so they put me on Hurmira injections every two weeks. I was seen by the team 2 weeks ago and touch wood things are stable, so let’s see what happens.
I joined the NRAS after a local meeting and I have applied to be a volunteer for them, just waiting to hear now, I thought that with not working maybe some of my nursing skills and my knowledge and experience of RA and Fibromyalgia I may do some good. Let’s see what happens next.