Erika, when you had JRA where did it affect you?
I really don't remember anything but crying and sleeping for a year or two. My older sisters say my knees and ankles swelled huge, and the MD gave me massive doses of steroids and indomethicin. When all this pain started two years ago next week, I actually didn't connect it with the arthritis when I was a kid, but finally my sisters made me tell my doc and then the testing began! Evidently I'd just been in remission for 38+ years, which is a huge quality problem.
I never had any prescription my whole life unless I had an ear infection, so I find it hard to take anything.
I feel you. I'm 50, and until my late thirties I didn't take anything except ibuprophen, which is an NSAID, all of which I've become fatally allergic to... bummer. Now I take cymbalta for back pain, LDN for feet & hand pain and mobility, and muscle relaxers for spasms. Oh well, I really don't care anymore about taking pills, as long as the excruciating pain monster is kept at bay!
I heard if your on a dose of 15mg your body stops making cortisol.
I don't know about the LDN. It took me 2 months to work up to 4.5mg, and that's where I stopped. I don't plan to go any higher, because as far as I know the research says that's just about perfect. I think Molly takes 6mg, but I'm not certain.
My ESR and CRP is almost always flat, but I'm ANA+, RF+, and HLAB27+, and hardly any joint damage. But my sisters are ANA- and RF-, and only one is HLAB27+, but she doesn't have spondylitis.
Go figure!
