Time Flies Whether You Are Having Fun Or Not!

I hate starting every blog post like this but really.....where have the last two years gone!  Let me just take a few minutes to catch you up!

I'll start with the kids.  Alex is almost 17 now.....I just can't even believe that.  She is a junior in high school and loves it.  She decided to join her co-ed wrestling team this year to my surprise.  She has never been into sports....at all. In fact the only activity she has ever participated in was a spring soccer program for 6 weeks and that was because one of her best friends was doing it at well.  Anyway, she loves it. It is very physical and the training is unreal!  Running, weight lifting, squats and of course...wrestling!  She has been able to keep up with the training amazingly well despite her arthritis. 

Another big change for Alex is that she is now vegetarian.  We are not huge meat eaters as it is but now she has completely cut it out.  She also cut out all soda, fast food and most sweets.  This was entirely her decision and I am proud of her.  

Health wise Alex has been doing pretty good.  Over the past few months she has noticed a lot more aches and pains all over her body which always seemed to coincide with the rain.  While it is common for arthritis patients to have this happen it is actually not that common for PsA patients.  The doctor thinks that there is a chance that she may also have fibromyalgia .  We are paying closer attention to her symptoms and pain and will report back to the doctor in four months.  It is quite common for kids with an autoimmune disorder to develop more than one.  

As most of you probably already know my son Ryan was also diagnosed with Psoriatic Arthritis in December of 2013.   He was having terrible crippling pain in his feet and ankles.  His doctor put him on Naprosyn for his inflammation and pain. This seemed to really help him.  At his last appointment (Jan 2015) his doctor was very impressed with his improvements and he is now just on the meds as needed.  

I think I will end this post here.  I just wanted to get on here to say hello and let you all know how the kids were doing health wise.   I will try to update again soon on the happenings with the rest of the family and my life.  There are a lot of exciting things going on!  Hope all of our JRA families are doing great!!