h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Christiane,

May I take the liberty of asking why you use a wheelchair and do not have a mobility scooter? I would have thought that would be a huge help? i know N would be lost without his as we live at the bottom of a very steep hill.

Websailor

The woman in question died about 25 years ago, but she had legendary status on her street.

Hi WS,

I suffer fr0m something called psoriatic arthritis. Although I was trained as a radiographer, I have never seen it affect anyone else. My bones are being slowly devoured by it, but since I have been in a wheelchair I have had no pain- which I have had all my life.

Now sadly, there seems to be a great big onslaught of the psoriatic arthritis and I have had both the heads and necks and the top part of my femurs devoured by the wretched arthritis. Howver I get around in my ordinary wheekchair in the house, and as I said go backwards when I have to go to the shops. I could not go around my flat on a mobility scooter. !!!!

That is why I made the joke about ending up looking like an octopus !Look no bones - only helpless tentacles!

I can find nothing about it anywhere, and when I went to the orthopaedic surgewon last week he seemed delighted when I told him I did not want a double hip replacement because there is nothing to attach the artificial hips I still have virtually no pain, but boy when it comes Brrrrrrrr.

I have joined the Psoriasis Association but no-one seems to know much about this type. Sad;y my spine is also affected and my neck is givimg me quite a lot pf pain.

End of my tale oof woe. !!!!
Hope I have not bored you with my long explication.

Thanks for asking.

Christiane


Saturday 16th October 2010 0.30 GMT
GMT

My neighbor has been on disability for years because he has Lupus, which is also a degenerative disease.

I've known people who have been devastatingly crippled by arthritis. It seems very strange to me that cures for these things have been so long in coming. Am I just expecting too much of medical science, which has so much on its plate anyway?

Hi Christiane,

You're not alone with that condition - the American golfer Phil Mickelson (one of the best in the world) was recently diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis.

This is his Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Mickelson

"In the days leading up to the 2010 PGA Championship at Whistling Straits, Mickelson announced he had been diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis. He added that he had started medical treatment, and became a vegetarian in hopes of aiding his recovery. He maintains that both his short and long term prognosis are good, and the condition should have no long term effect on his golfing career, and that he currently feels well. He also stated that the arthritis may go into permanent remission after one year of medical treatment."

No Christiane, you didn't bore me. I guess in a flat you wouldn't have room for a wheelchair and a mobility scooter. That's a shame. I had visions of you whizzing around everywhere

Re. Icy North's post (25), if you scroll to the bottom of the entry on the golfer there is a link to a Psoriatic arthritis page which may or may not be helpful.

Websailor

I have a funny feeling that a young world-class athlete with psoriatic arthritis would find doors opening right and left as he fought the disease. Would that the same doors would open for others.

Hello Christiane,

It was good to hear of the rescue of the miners in Chilea but even in this country many lives are lost in industrial accidents even with the passing of so many health and safety legislation but of course it is much worse in countries like Chilea. I think that the construction industry in the UK has the worst health and safety record.

There is one thing with all types of arthritis is getting it diagonosed in the early stages, is not fool proof way of diagnosing it. I have had psoriasis a few times and starting to get stiff joints, I have had blood tests in the past but they have come out as negative and I will have to wait until sometime in my fifties before I can be properly tested.

I am taking cod liver oil in liquid form as I find more beneficial than the capsule kind and it's a much stronger strength for my general health and hopefully keep arthritis at bay.

I also found that if you take beetroot juice it helps lower your blood pressure and garlic also does the same thing. I take garlic capsules and eat raw garlic in my salads and add it in my soups and stews.

Katrine

Unfortunately, eating garlic is not a way to make friends. When I was in school, there was a kid in my class who apparently ate raw garlic for breakfast every day. When you're crammed in together in classrooms, things like that are hard to miss.

You can get odourless capsules which are supposed to do the same thing without the unsocial effects

I go with the beetroot juice I have it daily

Websailor

Dear Icy Nprth,

How incredibly6 kind and thoughtful of you to find that about Mickelson also having psoriatic arthritis. I dpwnloaded the whole of his entry and found your recommrended link to his page in Wiki-edia. |Howeer I have not found the link which Websailor talks about.

I fear that Paulh is right nin his assumptions about sport, youth and fame. !! My misedrable little attempt to get into the ~SA Olympic Team in 1948 looks absolutely pathetic next to M|ckelson's record. My GP did poay me a special visit and when he reaslised that I knew something about Xras said thast he would care for my painkillers. Well I am not onto that yet - I honestly think that probably this devouring of one skeletal system is a new phenomenon, and perhaps I could be of help there.

I honestly think that this awful destruction of one;s skeletal system with the consequent problems I imagine to one;s soft tissue internal organs could be a very real problem, and it is there that I think someone with an interest in research might find a correlation between sport, sun, exercise - in my case |I practised \yoga for an hour everu day for 25 years I could stand on my head anywhere for as long as half and hour - excipt that one does not stand on one's head one makes a sort of triangle with one;s forearms and plaes one's head in the cup of one's hands, So something might have
ve gone awry. Anyway it is probably a new genetic thing - do not know.

My neck is incredibly sore so must go to my "pit" before my head falls off. !!!!

So thanks again Icy \north for your very useful lead. I shall ask my brother in the States if he has any contacts with the golfer....!!

With affection to you all, ##Christiane.

16/X/2010 21.05 GMT

Please forgive typing errors - do not have the cdourage to go through it again. !!

Arnold Schwarzanegger has mentioned some of the awful aches and pains that he experienced in his fifties because of overdoing the weightlifting in his twenties and thirties.

On the other hand, there are people who get arthritis in joints that they rarely exercized. Understanding of the causes of arthritis and the relationship because exercize and arthritis is still in its infancy.

Christiane here is the link. I hope it is useful.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psoriatic_arthritis

Websailor

Thank you smuch WS.

|Marvellous link.

Will look at it in great detail.

Christiane


Sunday 16//2010 11.30 GMT

Anti-inflammatory meds are apparently helpful. Has your given you any of those, Christiane?

Hi Christiane!

Just came across this thread........(Must read front page more often!!)

Sorry about your condition. Both wife and I are arthritic and on meds for it, but would be devastated if it deteriorated. We think you are very brave to bear it as you do!

I also watched the release of the Chilean Miners, and commented on it in my Journal as 'The Chilean Miracle'

I was amazed at how a supposedly 'Third World' country reacted and all pulled together for thier fellow citizens...



GT

The sad part was reading about how the miners went back to their meager existences. The mine has filed for bankruptcy, and the 300 miners who worked for it but weren't trapped are unemployed now. The spotlight has shifted somewhere else, and a lot of people will soon forget about them. The tabloids will probably run wacky stories about them, and turn the story into a circus.

Hadn't heard about the other 300 miners paulh.

Yes, the tabloids will have their slice of the action, but the 33 still have rewards to come. For instance, NASA is very interested in talking to them and learning about their experiences of isolation, to assist in research into interplanetary manned flights to Mars....



GT

Dear Paulh, I am so sad that my prognisticatuins were correct. surely someone should start a fund for these unfortunate miners. I believe that the President of Chile was coming to see the British Prime Minister two days afterwards. I only saw a very brief snapshot of him on the TV, and never with the PM. Pinera happens to be one of the three richest men in the world I believe. Surely, as the BBC managed to film him throughtout the saving of these men's lives, he could nat least start a fund for them. Chile must be an incredibly poor country. I only know a little bit about Peru and absooutely nothing about Chile. Something should be done about it.

With many good wishes,

Christiane

21/X/2010 0.50 GMT

Chile isn't that poor. It's got a fairly strong economy for South America.