So, it’s been a minute. I been busy. My kids graduated, got jobs, college, etc. I got a job. I’ve been writing for Dana Loesch’s newsletter, Chapter and Verse. Go check it out! But I’ve also been struggling with health issues.
The TLDR is that my arthritis has gotten fairly aggressive, and is making it hard for me to move. It’s in almost every joint, but is really bad in my right foot, both ankles, knees, and my lower back.
The long version: Roughly Christmas 2019, my right foot began to hurt. the cuboid bone area started to swell, and became so tender, I couldn’t even wear my shoes. I went to the Doctor, and was sent for an MRI and referred to podiatry. Turned out that I had Bone Marrow Edema in my Cuboid. No evidence of a fracture or anything, so the theory was that the mild arthritis in the joint had pissed off the bone, and caused the problem.
The MRI showed the edema was in the cubiod, and the Navicular, with a little bit of arthritis in the joints including the bottoms of the 3rd and 4th metatarsals. It also showed I have damaged cartilage in my ankle (top of the talus) due to arthritis, and the bone spur at the bottom of the calcaneous has grown back. Only reason it’s not causing me plantar facia pain is because the right foot is where I had the tendon detachment surgery back in 2014.
The military Podiatrist gave me a shot of cortisone and told me to rest it. When it didn’t do much, and my foot was still in a lot of pain 3 months later, I called him again. At that point I was told, “Nothing I can do, just live with it.” I wish I was joking about that. I fought with Tricare for another 6 months to get a referral to a civilian provider, the same guy who did my Plantar detachment years back. My civilian provider sent me for a new MRI, and then tried everything – PT, cortisone, surgical boot to rest the area for months, he even did a surgery to relieve the edema and replace the inflamed marrow with a special solution that was supposed to be replaced with bone. 6 months after the surgery, I am still having a lot of pain in the foot. We were thinking I might need another surgery to fuse the cuboid to another bone. So he ordered another MRI to check on the progress post surgery. This third MRI showed “severe bone marrow edema and cystic change” throughout the affected area, and my that my talar cartilage is almost gone. My Dr looked at the images, read the report, and said that unfortunately, the arthritic change in the last 6 months is so dramatic, that I’m no longer a good candidate for fusion. Just fusing the cuboid would no longer help, if he fused every joint with arthritis, he’d have to fuse the whole foot, and that’s just not feasible, would make it impossible for me to walk, and likely would not help with the pain. He told me this is no longer just a foot problem, it’s now a major arthritis problem and I need to see rheumatology.
Meanwhile – while I have always had lower back pain, in the last month or so it has gotten very bad. So bad that I have trouble getting out of bed in the morning and walking around during the day. It’s honestly a good thing my kids are grown and I can work from my bed if I have to. So, I got my PCM to do xrays of my back. I got to see the xrays, but I didn’t get to get a photo. I found a normal xray online, and then drew what I saw. Basically, not a single vertebra has a straight line, and the last few in my lumbar form a sort of “s” shape.
The official Xray report, like all Military xray reports, claims that my arthritis is “mild.” It claims mild Facet Arthrosis and mild lumbar spondylosis. I take issue with the word “mild” since my pain is anything but mild, but anyway, because of the podiatrist’s recommendation for rheumatology, and this back issue, my PCM agreed to send me to Rhuema.
As part of the referral process, my PCM ordered xrays of my knees and hands. The tech taking the xrays was awesome. After he did my knees, we looked at the films, and I could see big spikes off the back of my kneecaps, and the space in the joint is barely there, it looked bone-on-bone in some areas. The official reading though? “Mild osteoarthritic degenerative change” from the last set of knee xrays taken in 2014.
The xrays of my hands weren’t much better. My PCM felt my knuckles and said he could feel very obvious bone changes, and the Xray Tech was shocked I wasn’t in more pain than I am. I laughed and told him, don’t worry, the military radiologist will declare that my arthritis is “mild.” He respond, “Oh girl, they are so bad for that. That is NOT mild.” So what did the military radiologist say about my hands? “Minimal osteoarthritic degenerative changes.” Sigh.
So the next steps are to see if I can get a rheumatologist to help. I saw a civilian Rhuema back in 2011, and he told me then that I had the worst arthritis of anyone my age that he had ever seen. The Dr said I’d likely need knee replacement in 10 years, but I had to move, and the military doctors I’ve seen so far (mostly PCMs and Ortho) refuse, saying I just need to lose weight and I’ll be fine. Sure, Jan. Problem with that thinking – I lost weight and got down to 175 before I had my youngest 18 years ago, and my arthritis pain was worse than ever, and I’m not sure how I’m supposed to exercise and lose weight when I can’t friggin move.
Sidebar: that’s the military answer to everything – lose weight. But when I do lose the weight, they won’t help either. At my heaviest I was at 355. I lost down to 275, and plateaued. I was having problems with excess skin, and rashes, and my PCM reccomended me for plastic surgery to remove the excess. But Surgery, without ever laying eyes on me, deemed me too heavy to survive the surgery, and offered bariatric instead. They are so quick to push bariatric surgery, but won’t help if you choose to go a different route. Sigh.
Anyway! I’ve already gone through the usual arthritis meds. We are waiting for lab reports to prove it’s not rheumatoid arthritis. I was told in 2011 that my arthritis acts like rheumatoid but it isn’t because I don’t have any of the markers. My grandmother on my father’s side had a very aggressive form of arthritis as well, and my mom’s side had early-onset arthritis, so it seems I got a combo of the two. Here’s hoping the rheumatologist can help with pain relief and maybe figure out how to slow the progression.