Psoriatic Arthritis Question!

[Caroline]

Hi everyone!

I have been looking a lot into psoriatic arthritis lately, and I think I have it but I'm not really sure. I get daily pain in a few of my joints, but I don't know if it's from something else. The most common one is my right knee. Almost every night, it will just start aching and nothing I do, except taking Ibuprofen, helps. The knuckles in my thumbs also hurt often as well as my wrists.

If you have psoriatic arthritis, could you tell me what your experience is like because I'd really like to determine what is behind the aching. 

Thanks so much!
Jenna

Hi Jenna,

I have it also.
It is basically limited (with me) to my fingers and feet, the little joints. This is also the place where it normally pops up. But certainly it can pop up indeed anywhere, so your wrists and knee could also be touched.

Psoriatic arthritis is very difficult to diagnose, as there are no signals in your blood or anywhere that can prove it. But as you have psoriasis, there is a 5% chance that you will also get psoriatic arthritis.
Jim can (and will)  also tell you more about it.

Psoriatic arthritis is normally the inflammation of the little joints. It can be disabling when the inflammation get the chance to damage your joints. In my case my right foot is damaged, so the long distance running i liked to do is now over, and I had to change to cycling.

Treatment is mostly done by a rheumatologist, but also the dermatologist can do it.
Main problem of the rheumatologist is that they will try to start you on methotrexate (MTX). In my opinion you should refuse that. You are far to young for that, MTX is a medication developed against cancer and is highly toxic, it is also sometimes used to initiate an abortion. If you wanna have kids..... don't use it, there are many far better medications.
On the forum we have descriptions and experiences of all kind of medications.
They fall apart in the systemics (acetretin, Dimethylfumarate, cyclosporine, last is not too good) and the whole range of biologicals, like Enbrel, Remicade, Humira, Stelara and Cosentyx of which this last appears to be very effective.

Latest medical strategies, at least in the rheuma world is to try to give the disease a hard kick with a strong medication hoping that it will go to rest for a long time with perhaps a minimal dose. But I don't know how far they are on your side of the ocean.

I'm very sorry for you if it appears to be psoriatic arthritis, it is a nasty disease, but you can live with it.

Be positive !
Caroline

P.s. Oh, and the difference between systemics and biologicals is that the first are relatively cheap and the last are expensive.