Friday, November 13, 2015

What's it like to run with Psoriatic Arthritis?

I'm not actually at a point in my running fitness where the Psoriatic Arthritis and inflammation are a problem for me.  The runs I do are relatively low distance, and due to having run less than 10 miles a month this year on average, my cardio is usually the limiting factor.

My current pattern is to run Tuesday evenings while pushing my son in the stroller, Thursdays in the evening by myself, and Saturday mornings pushing my son in the stroller. We have park less than a mile from our house, so I will run past it or on it's maze of trails (depending on length of run) and then come back to it and the playground for my son to get his exercise time in.  Once he gets out of the stroller, my run is basically over, because he is never happy about getting back in. 

Every Saturday, I take a subcutaneous injection of a TNF inhibitor.  I usually do it after my run, after I shower.  I alternate injections in the top of my thighs... I don't have any track marks yet.  The weekly injection has become fairly commonplace at my house.  My wife used to request that I do it when she wasn't in the house.  I have an auto-click injector that has the exact dosage already in it, and even if she's in another room of the house, she can hear the mechanism click and knowing what is happening kind of grossed her out.  They arrive on an almost monthly basis at my house in a Styrofoam cooler with cold packs.  The medicine degrades if it isn't refrigerated, so it goes from the cooler into the back of the fridge.  I pull on out and let it sit on the counter for about 15 minutes so it gets up to room temperature (gotta keep it out of reach of the almost 2 year old).  Once it reaches room temperature, I find a place where I can sit down, swab the top of my thigh with alcohol, and then give myself the injection.  The wife isn't bothered by the noise anymore.  I then take the injector up to the top shelf of my closet and deposit it in a sharps container and go about my day.

This image is from a guide for use of these types of injectors.  It's a little better looking than my thigh.

I don't inject based off of need or feeling, and it would probably take several months of not taking the medication for me to stop using it.  Psoriatic Arthritis isn't curable, it's symptoms are sometimes manageable.  Some people will probably have to change medications or dosages as time goes on if they aren't getting what they need.  We will see what happens with me. 

As my distance increases and I make efforts to increase my speed, I will continue to update what I think is typical soreness and what is inflammation due to my Psoriatic Arthritis.  I don't know if I will be able to tell.

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