There I was sitting in the doctor’s office because of all the pain I was experiencing. I thought it was just growing pains, but little did I know it was something else. It was a day in August that I was experiencing so much pain, I have had enough of it. I wasn’t getting much sleep, I could barely get out of bed, and I was always limping. I had finally gotten a doctors appointment with a rheumatologist to see what was going on. On the way to the doctor’s I was sitting in the front seat, and my heart felt like it was going to pound out of my chest. I didn’t know what to think of my pain, I was only 10 and I had no idea what was going on, I was so nervous. When we finally got to the doctors office they called me back in less than 10 minutes …show more content…
He started to examine me by moving my joints around and he didn’t know what was going on. I seemed too young get diagnosed with anything so he was concerned about my pain especially with playing a sport. He ordered many blood tests to make sure everything was ok. He asked my mom;
“Do you have a family history of autoimmune diseases?”
“Actually we do, both of her grandmas have one,” my mom said.
“Ok then, we better keep an eye out for that,” Dr. Groh said, as we walked down the hall and into the lab work room.
Once I got into the room, I took a number from the ticket thing and waited for about 5 minutes. During those 5 minutes I was really nervous, I have never had blood work done in my life and all my mom said was “it’s just like a shot.”
Once they called me back they put me in the chair and asked me for my birthdate. They put the tight band around my arm to make the veins pop out and make it easier to get blood. They took the cap off the needle and stuck it right in my arm, I was sitting there for at least 5 minutes because they took 6 bottles of blood so they could find out what I had right
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I started asking questions like,
“What is arthritis?”
“What does Juvenile mean?”
“What's the psoriatic mean?”
My doctor just said that its a disease with inflammation of the joints. The psoriasis is discoloring of the skin and Juvenile means that it was diagnosed at a young age.
The only words that I remember him saying are
“There’s a good chance you are going to be in pain the rest of your life.”
He continued on saying how I will be in pain, but the medicine he will prescribe me will be so strong I don’t feel any pain. Its a pain blocker. When he said those words, I was trying so hard not to cry. Hearing the words, “You are going to be in pain the rest of your life” were horrible, knowing that you are 10 years old and you still have a whole life ahead of you but you're going to have to spend your life in pain 24/7 is horrible, especially for a kid that young.
I went home thinking I’m not going to be in pain the rest of my life, they have medicine for me. They are going to help me get my pain under control so I can keep playing softball and not have to quit because of my
Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic inflammatory and an autoimmune disease that occurs when the immune system mistakenly attacks the body’s tissue (Rheumatoid arthritis, 2017). This disease affects the entire body, which is called a systemic (means entire body) disease. Arthritis is derived from the word part arthr-, which means “joint,” and -itis, which means “inflammation,” so altogether it means “inflammation of the joints.” It creates inflammation that causes the tissue that lines the inside of joints (synovium) to thicken. About 1.5 million people in the U.S. are affected. It affects all races, but it affects three times as many women than men (What is Rheumatoid Arthritis, n.d.). Overtime, rheumatoid arthritis causes painful swelling that can potentially result in bone erosion or joint deformity, which leads up to physical disabilities. RA can affect more than just your joints, but can spread to body systems, skin, eyes, lungs, heart, blood vessels, e.t.c (Rheumatoid arthritis, 2017).
Introduction Myasthenia Gravis is a chronic autoimmune disorder that weakens the muscles. The name MG comes from the Latin word meaning grave muscle weakness. In 1672, Thomas Willis was the first to describe a patient with myasthenia gravis. There were periodic case descriptions over the years in 1900 regarding this disease.
Rheumatoid Arthritis is when the joints are chronically inflamed, which happens because it is an autoimmune disease which means that the immune system attacks the body tissues. Although Rheumatoid Arthritis mainly affects the joints, it can also affect other organs.
Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) Imagine being diagnosed with a condition that flares in and out of control repeatedly every year. Your doctor has told you that the cause could be genetic, or it could be directly related to previous toxins or illnesses you may have been exposed to, leaving you frustrated and looking for answers. None of your family members have ever had any trouble with their joints, but yours have been so painful and tender lately that even getting out of bed in the morning seems like a chore. Turns out, you have an autoimmune disease that affects about 1.3 million people in our country every year. Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic rheumatic disease that directly attacks your body’s joints and their surrounding tissues, causing pain, inflammation, and damage.
Arthritis is a general term for approximately 100 diseases that produce either INFLAMMATION of connective tissues, particularly in joints, or noninflammatory degeneration of these tissues. The word means "joint inflammation," but because other structures are also affected, the diseases are often called connective tissue diseases. The terms rheumatism and rheumatic diseases are also used. Besides conditions so named, the diseases include gout, lupus erythematosus, ankylosing spondylitis, degenerative joint disease, and many others, among them the more recently identified LYME DISEASE.
All human bodies have an immune system, which is a complex network of cells and organs that protect the body from germs and other foreign substances. A mistake can make the body unable to tell the difference between foreign substances and the body’s own cells. When this happens, the body makes auto-antibodies that attack body cells by mistake. When a foreign substance invades your body (like a cold virus or bacteria on a thorn that pricks your skin) your immune system attacks it. It tries to identify, kill and get rid of the invaders that might harm you. But sometimes problems with your immune system cause it to mistake your body’s own healthy cells as invaders and then repeatedly attack them. This is called an autoimmune disease.
My arm got so swollen and hurt so much that I was rushed into the hospital. The fear of not being able to write tormented me. I wondered if I would ever be able to pass out from the pain. After going to emergency, I came out with a cast in my arm. The doctors gave me some pain medications and I was going to get referred to therapy, I didn’t know what to expect. I wondered what would happen and if I would have to wake up the next day with the same pain or maybe even worse. The pain was a ten and it felt like my arm was burning, it was so unbearable that I couldn’t even move it. All these question came to my mind: "How will I eat?" Will I be able to sleep at night?" "How long will the pain last?" "Will I be sick in bed for days, weeks, months?" I was sick in bed for several months and I couldn’t write or go to school. I was so devasted because I had never been sick in bed for a long time. I started reading books since that was the only thing I could do. When I read books I would get inspired to write poetry but I would record myself. I remember reading catholic books my mom had but they were in spanish. I didn’t really know how to read spanish well but I tried my best. I figured I could learn spanish better by reading spanish books. I remember reading the Bible, and other prayer books that made me feel like I could escape from my sorrow. My love kept growing deeper for reading, and I had more ideas for
Psoriasis is an autoimmune disease that affects 125 million people world wide according to the World Psoriasis Day consortium. The origin of psoriasis is unknown, but many doctors and researches believe that genetics, along with environmental factors, trigger a hyperactive reaction of the immune system that leads to the relatively harmless, yet uncomfortable skin disease. The response of the immune system induces skin cells to multiply and mature rapidly, causing the skin cells to accumulate on top of each other and as a result, the skin becomes red, scaly, itchy, and forms thick patches on the skin. Despite that this disease is the most frequent auto-immune disease in the world, there is no cure for it. Not only is there no cure for psoriasis, but this disease can lead to other problems depending on the severeness of the disorder for example: psoriatic arthritis. However, this chronic disease has several treatment options that if used correctly and in a timely manner, will reduce and lessen the symptoms.( Although there is no cure for psoriasis, understanding how it begins, recognizing the symptoms, and learning about treatment options can enhance the quality of life for a person diagnosed with psoriasis.)
In the summer of 1995 I woke up in the middle of the night screaming in pain and holding my knee. My mom discovered a large lump bulging out the side of my right knee. The next morning my parents took me to the E.R. where they told us it was "growing pains" and thus sent us on our way with 200 mg of ibuprofen. That summer I was excited to join my first softball team. I soon found out I had to sit out on a lot of games because I was hurting. As a result my parents presumed I was making it up and thought I didn't want to play softball anymore.
Psoriasis is a disease of the integumentary system that results in a skin rash, and also sometimes the rash involves the joints and nails. The epithelial cells of the skin are hyperproliferative, and result in a thickening of the uppermost layer of skin called the epidermis. Psoriasis is chronic and so far, cannot be cured. Treatment options are available in the sense that the visual results, the lesions of the skin, can be treated but often times reoccur when the treatment is stopped.
To his surprise, his father began very carefully to direct the needle into the top of the newchild’s forehead, puncturing the place where the fragile skin pulsed. The newborn squirmed and wailed faintly “Why’s he-“ “Shhh,” The giver said sharply. His father was talking, and Jonas realized that he was hearing the answer to the question he had started to ask. Still in the special voice, his father was saying, “I know, I know. It hurts, little guy. But I have to use a vein, and the veins in your arm are still too teeny-weeny.” He pushed the plunger very slowly, injecting the liquid into the scalp vein until the syringe was empty. “All done. ! That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Jonas heard his father say cheerfully. He turned aside and dropped the syringe into a waste receptacle. Now he cleans him up and makes him comfy, Jonas said to himself, aware that the giver didn’t want to talk during the little ceremony. As he continued to watch, the newchild, no longer crying, moved his arms and le...
A fundamental aspect of pediatric healthcare is to help reduce a child’s pain during hospitalization (Ullán et al., 2014). In recent years, there has been an increase in the amount of emerging research that focuses on children’s pain, which in turn has positively impacted the development and expansion of services that aid in treating pain in pediatric patients. There has been improvement in the standards and guidelines surrounding the practices of pediatric pain management. The fundamental points of these standards and guidelines are that pediatric pain should be: “treated aggressively, taken seriously, and managed by multimodal means”—including nonpharmacological approaches (Ullán et al., 2014, p. 274). It has been proposed that a central
It was July 22nd when I got the phone call that my great grandma was in the hospital. It was so shocking to me I didn’t even know what to think I had just been up there to see her two days ago prior to then. My dad had called me and told me in a calm but of course I know my dad to well to know that he was calm but actually pretty scared and frantic. I was at work and a perk to my job is that I work at a family owned business that is actually close to my family.
One of the most common mysteries in the world is the development of autoimmune diseases. An autoimmune disease is when the immune system, which usually keeps your body healthy thinks that your healthy cells are antigens and attacks them. This is irony right? It is against properties of evolution for an immune system to attack itself causing sickness and possibly death if untreated. There are about 80 different types of autoimmune diseases, which usually have periods of little to no symptoms and worsening symptoms. What particularly creates confusion in the world is the autoimmune disease, inflammatory bowel disease, which affects almost about five million people worldwide.
The woman nodded in acceptance before going to get a nurse who escorted both Ami and me to an isolated room in the back. I was told to take a seat on the gurney and not to drink anything or even use the restroom that she would be right back with some paperwork for me.