Hi Kristy,

Welcome to KA!!!!
Your state of mind is still fresh in my memory. I was diagnosed in Aug 2002. I don't think it's possible to overcome this disease, you only get used to the idea. I wish I could sit with you and have a chat. You are lucky in the fact that there are other people close to you who you can talk to. Fighting the fears alone is scary and very hard, and it gets harder when you have to explain to others what the problem is. For me talking about it for the first year was the trigger to fall into depression - sometimes so bad that reasons for living hastely dissapears from my point of view.

The first real improvement came after starting on the NSD. It's only when you get the first possitive results that you start to think that maybe there is a way to survive your own thoughts.
I have to admit that when I started the NSD, there were so many things that I love which I couldn't consume any more, but since feeling the improvement, you start to care less about the foods that cause pain.

My opinion is that you can be lucky you had children before being diagnosed, otherwise it may be a difficult decision to make. I am certainly struggling with that very same decision!

My dad taught my that 2 wrongs doesn't make a right. So to be negative about a negative thing is not going to make it possitive. It may go againts our logical, mathematical reasoning, but life is not maths.
Sometimes it will seem as if this thing drags you down, and it does!
I geuss what I am trying to say is that you have to make a decision about life. You cannot make it go away, but you can make life bearable to a certain extent, but to do it you have to face reality. Sit down in quiet place, where no one will disturb you, with all the information you can find about the condition and read it over and over. Think about it, cry about it and be angry about it, but most of all, talk about it - to yourself. It helped me in the sence that I could get to a point where I could talk to other people about it without bursting into tears.
First think of all the negative aspects, all the things that you will not be able to do ever again, the things you enjoyed and now have to say good-bye to.
Then think about what's left. You wil amazed by how many things are left. (but that's only after you had some improvement - in the heat of the condition nothing seems worth it anymore)
Sometimes you have to take a step back in order to go forward.

I wish you the best. Probably the most important part - and also the part least addressed by a doc or rheumy - is to get your mind right.

Life is too short to bother wasting your time and energy on something you cannot change.

God bless

Rinus