Hi everyone, I stumbled across this site while looking for some information on my reactive arthritis and like everyone who looks on here I have looked all over the internet about this terrible condition.
A bit about myself, my name is Chris, 24 and I am a outdoor activity instructor and overly active playing football 3 times a week, doing open water swimming twice a week and then just the general nature of my job keeping me fit.
My Storey...
I came down with reactive arthritis on the 18th June 2013 and its now 21st July 2013. I got the condition after having gastroenteritis for a week starting 11th June, after a couple of days I went back to work not 100% but well enough and noticed 3 days later that my knee had swollen up to a crazy size and was causing me untold pain. On the evening of the 18th I went to hospital and they straight away diagnosed it as reactive arthritis and drained my 3 times to test if it was infected (it wasn't). I stayed in hospital over night and they put me on diclofenac, pain killers and some stuff for my tummy which still wasn't right sent me on my way informing me all would be fine after a week of rest. I wasn't fine a week later and in fact was much worse with my feet swelling up and my right elbow and fingers. I went to my gp after days of crazy pain sometimes barely able to move or get out of bed he sent me to rheumatologist on the NHS that appointment was months away so to speed up process I decided to go private for an appointment to see what they would say. Straight away they took me off the diclofenac and put me on 20mg of prednisolone (4 tablets, steroids I believe) It was then the weekend and I was in untold pain with not being able to move and joints swelling up I went straight back to the rheumatologist after the weekend and they doubled my dose 40mg and added 2 tablets of sulfasalazine a day. This has helped, the pain is still there but no where near the extremes of what it was.
While all of this has been going on I have been booking an appointment with my gp every other week to keep him in the loop. I have had many blood tests that both my gp and rheumatologist look at and decide the next course of action. Reading stories id say that I am in the middle bracket of how serious my reactive arthritis is with the amount of pain but I feel that this may be because I have reacted quickly to each individual new symptom. I am also going physio on a weekly basis and as soon as I feel strong enough have been told to go swimming. I have lost a lot of muscle and strength due to not doing any real activity for a month which I feel is making me feel worse.
Now I am a month in and like everyone I guess we are all being told you will get better within 3-12 months. Also like everyone I have goodish days and terrible days I have lost my active lifestyle at the moment, I cant work and even going out to meet friends is a chore and have to call it a night early. I am not an idiot I no it will take time and I have had some very dark days in the last month where I have just thought what is the point this disease is to strong for me. I cant say 100% that i'll play football again like I did and be able to do everything at work like I use to, but I'm going to keep trying as you have to believe what the doctors are telling you.
If people are interested of how I get along who are in same position I will keep posting on here to update and hopefully will improve for us all!!