I'm just wondering if there is anyone else out there that suffers from this? I just found out that I have it today, and was a tad surprised, being that I'm only 26.
A little backstory. I've always had problems with my joints, played a lot of sports and had a few injuries. For the past five years or so, I've been having issues with my arms and legs falling asleep while I'm sleeping. When I wake up my hands are very swollen and stiff and painful, as are my feet and knees. I was starting to worry that I might have an autoimmune issue, so I went to see my family practitioner last week. He thought so too, so he ordered quite a bit of bloodwork and sent me to see a rhuematologist.
Fast forward to rheumatology visit today. It started off really bad. He quickly, like *very* quickly glanced at my labs, told me I had a boderline ANA titer, but didn't fit the bill for an inflammatory disease (which I totally agree with -- ds has an autoimmune illness and my symptoms are nothing like his). Anyway, he then went on to accuse me of being "depressed"
: After about 10 minutes of me convincing him that I'm NOT depressed!! He finally started to actually do his JOB and take a look at my joints. Turns out I have quite a bit of bone spurs in my finger joints and feet, which would cause the stiffness.
Anyway, we both agreed that meds would be pointless, but he gave me a prescription for a pharmecuetical grade fish oil -- I'm sort of excited about this, because I really think Omega-3s are great for the body, and I had no idea there was a prescription, very pure version (aka, no mercury threat).
Has anyone heard of having OA at this young? (I'm 26) and did/does the fish oil help?
So, in the long run, the rhuematologist turned out to be a cool guy -- he commiserated with me on the dangers of mercury (always a plus in my world).
Said to try a few natural things and come back in three months, but that I probably couldn't slow the progression of the illness and that by my late thirties it would be pretty bad (the bad news)
Ok, sorry for the ramble. I guess I just needed to tell someone out there all this stuff!
