My Story: A Virtual Perspective (Part 2)

I developed symptoms for psoriatic arthritis when I was 12. At the time, I started doing sports. So we thought it was a sports injury.

And throughout my entire time as a teenager, I did sports. And every ache, and pain, and any little thing that would happen, it was always, oh, it's one of your sports injuries, because you play sports. But when I became 19 and I couldn't walk, I was like, hey, maybe this isn't a sports injury.

You guys, maybe, this is something a little bit more. It wasn't until I was about 19 I went to go see my dermatologist. And they noticed me limping. I was officially diagnosed at 21.

And I unfortunately have it from my jawline down to my toes. I think that was the one thing that I was really surprised about was learning about the arthritis and then having the arthritis feel like it go from 0 to 60 from like a few pains that they thought were sports injuries to me not being able to walk and bedridden for about two months. One of the big comorbidities for psoriatic arthritis is diabetes.

And I actually was pre-diabetic a few years ago. And so when I learned about being pre-diabetic, I completely changed my entire lifestyle. I'm mostly a pescaterian now and low-carb, because I found that that was the best way for me personally to help me keep the weight off and to help me keep active. When I was first in pain, I started-- I pushed myself to do things normally, the way I normally would, thinking it would go back to normal.

But I think for me, because my arthritis was so extreme and so painful that I caused myself a lot more injury than if I would have learned to do it a different way or ask for more help. I would have done something better for myself, because now I am living with the joint damage and the previous injuries. It does still cause me pain, even if there isn't any inflammation.

Through it all, I still keep a very positive, you know-- like it's OK. It was a bad day and a bad moment, but in general, I mean, it's a blessing. Also, it's brought me so much.

And it's really taught me how to push through things. You have to mourn the passing of that able body and figure out how to do it a different way. I kept wanting to go back to normal. I think that was my thing, was let me get back to normal, but there wasn't a normal yet. I had to make a new normal.