Topical interlude

[pecunium]

This is, so I discover, National Invisible Chronic Illness Awareness Week

It's a pernicious thing, an invisible illness. People have heard of spoons, sort of (I don't like the analogy, but there you go), but it's not the same. People who have an ivisible illness are just that invisible.

I know. I have one.

Reiter's Syndrome

It's not terrible, but I'm always aware of it.

Which is just the way it is. Some days I have aches and pains.

It's the secondary effects. There are time I can't do things which seem perfectly normal (I seem to have a mild case of chronic Reiter's. It could be worse, I could have a massive case, or a more vigorous case, which fades away and then recurrs in force).

The way it usually affects me is that I can't do things for as long as I used to be able to. My joints start to hurt, and moving becomes a little painful. If I push it motion gets limited. I'll never free-climb Half Dome (Ok, that's a cheap rhetorical flourish, free climbing rocks where a fall is certain death isn't on my list of approved activities... I may be crazy but I ain't stupid).

Which is where the invisible part come in. If you don't know I'm sick, then my begging off seems to be that of a wimp, or a killjoy. I look just fine, but I'm not.

There are a lot of people out there who have the same problem, their handicaps aren't out there where they can be seen.

So here I am, doffing, for the moment, the cloak of invisibilty I normally get to wear.

Comments

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

Mild arthritis in my knees, myself. I keep thinking it'll go into remission, and that I'll be able to jog again on a regular basis.

Probably not.

[firedrake-mor.livejournal.com]

Wow! Just to tell you how invisible it is, you're only the third person I've even met with it. I was diagnosed in 1984, when a nasty case of achilles tendinitis let me to the rheumatology department at UCLA, and the hands of Dr. Dwight Kono, who was doing a study. I was HLA-B27 positive. Over the years I've manifested most of the symptoms at one time or another: IBS, Iritis, Urethritis, LBP, etc.

I actually lost one acquaintance at the VA to the acute pericarditis that can accompany the disease -- a healthy-appearing, otherwise normal looking bodybuilder by hobby, vet counselor by trade, just didn't wake up one morning.

Invisible, it may be, but it's never far from one's awareness, is it, whenever some new symptom pops up.

Take care of yourself!

[greenmother.livejournal.com]

Thanks for sharing the link! I have family, friends and colleagues who live with one or more invisible chronic illnesses, so I will be sending it onwards.

My early onset osteoarthritis was a visible chronic illness and could be "fixed" by a joint replacement. Not surprisingly, the other hip is now showing signs of damage arising from the 4+ years of dealing with the first bout of osteo. So I'm working with my doctor to get the requisite X-rays, etc. to see if the joint pain is, in fact, osteo. Frabjous day and all that jazz!

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

It's rare. Whenever a doctor finds out I have it we get to have a lengthy interview (even in line at Sea-Tac to clear security).

It's actually more common in soldiers than in the population at large (you are the third person, other than myself to have it, a female troop in the plane with me to Landsthul; she was in more pain than I was, but it was more localised, and she went back to Iraq the same week, and a readiness NCO in the CalGuard).

I think (from my reading; though I'd not heard about the pericarditis) it's a combination of age (30-40 being peak likilhood of manifestation) exposure to GI problems, and stress.

Not that it matters now, but I think I've figured out how I got it... the smoke from burning shit.

If you go back to my first set of posts, up to about Sept. 2003, you'll see the course of the disease as it happened.

TK

[sunfell.livejournal.com]

Migraneur here. I think that the worst ones are the ones that are painless, but make me look (and act) like a total dork. Like today. My eyes get wonky, my teeth hurt, and it's hard to form words. Don't even think about reading a non-LCD screen. Happily, all my screens are LCDs now, but they're still painfully bright. I need to find a dimmer 'migraine setting' for them.

The nastier ones are the axe-in-the-skull ones. I generally ice down my head, take a Relpax and tell the world to F*ck off when I'm in Axe Mode. I fear that the current headache I have might fester into an Axe.

Not fun. I want my head back. You all have my empathy.

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link. I know about the invisible chronic illness business, having fibromyalgia that ranges from annoying to debilitating when it flares. Work knows I have FMS only because I have requested to work downstairs occasionally (my office is on the 3rd floor -- no elevator).

And like you, I dislike the spoons analogy. (Too cutesy, or something.)

[fjm.livejournal.com]

Empathy coming in waves. Part of the reason I am so "out" about celiac is that I hid the migraine for years (of the same kind as sunfell) because of the culture of disbelief and intolerance I encountered.