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

Hi Leopardskynfin

How nice to meet you again. How are you. Apart from the loss of 360, I have been lost twice in the bowels of the BBC computer with all the changes. Hopefully I am now permanently found.

Are you busy - working hard? Have you been away this summer?

Please do get in touch.

With affection

AR1

Hi there AR1 !

How are you?
Glad to hear that you've been permanantly found!

What have I been up to this summer? (thinks hard...)
Oh I got married!
18th July was the happy day, and I still have to write a journal entry about it and put links to photos so that my h2g2 friends can see them, but I've been so tired recently (my M.E. has been playing up because of the stress of the wedding I think), and what with starting a new part time job (as well as working as a volunteer shiatsu practitioner in a drug and homeless organisation), I've just not had the time or the energy.


I went to visit a friend in France the other weekend, which was lovely, if a *little* cold. She and her husband bought a run down house and barn, and now they've nearly finished renovating it...which is good because she's now about 3 and 1/2 months pregnant!

I've been on a couple of shiatsu courses - one of them on the use of shiatsu in pregnancy and childbirth, which is an area I'd like to specialize in.

Soooo, I guess you could say that I've been busy!

Yes, it is a shame about 360. I miss Maggy.

Hi my dear Leopardskin,

Thanks to abbi, I have now found you a second time!!.

Never to lose you again I hope.

Congratulations on the marriage. And I see that you are going to help a friend with the birth of her second baby.

My hands have flared up again and it is very sore to type. Now I have put you on my list of friends I shall ALWAYS be able to keep in contact with you.

with affection

Also Ran1

Halloooo AR1!


Thanks for dropping by.
and ?

I'm back home now after staying with my pregnant friend for 5 weeks - she gave birth to a beautiful little girl on wednesday morning.

I mean to write a journal entry about it later on...

I'm very sorry to hear that your hands have flared up again.
Have you tried homoeopathy? I'm not a homoeopath, but I'll have a look online for you if you like?

Hi my dear

Well here I am!

I had open heart surgery ten years ago because I had an aneurysm in/on my left coronary artery. It was very successful. However, since then my sore feet.knees.hips have developed at an alarming rate and then in 1997 I started what was diagnosed as psoriasis on my hands.

Subsequently, after being injected with a radioactive isotope, I was diagnosed as suffering from psoriatic arthritis, and the prediction that I would be in a wheelchair in three months time as "my joints were shot"

I started acupuncture and chinese herbs for the pain which was really getting intolerable and held off the W/C for two more years. However in 2000 I started using one. Eventually my wonderful acupuncturist told me she could no longer help me. I have been taking Glucosomine with chondroitin for about eight years. Last year when once again the various doctors wanted to perform a double hip replcement I argued that it was not worth it as all my joints were gone. In any case they advised me that the risk of a stroke "with my heart condition" was very real. My reply was that that it was preferable to be in a wheelchair than having a stroke.

However my knee and ankle joints were xrayed and lo and behold. I have the most beautiful joints there again!!. Due, I am sure to the Gloucosomine and chondroitin. However, at about the same time as I was confined to a w.c my hands started peeling.. I eventulaly lost all my nails, and my hands went on peeling. It was only last year that a patientt at one of the dermatology clinics that I had been referred to suggested that it might be the heart medication I was on. My GP decided tht it could be that. So I came off the tablets I had been on for nine years. My BP unfortunately went up and about three months ago he put me me onto other heart tablets.

I have been free of pain and extreme sensitivity in my fingertips for nearly six months. I thought it was over and now this time it has come back as bad as ever. I wonder if it could be stress? Last night my little friend who has been giving my legs and feet massage twice a week for the last four years gave me a very good lower arm and hand massage. This morning, (coincidentally?) the fingers are still swollen but the extreme pain appears to have diminished.
I have already made an appointment with the local homeopathic hospital but unfortunately had to cancel it. I shall make another one. I have tried every cream in the book, and have suddenly found a brand that does not exacerbate the problem. I was wondering if there was any soothing herb which I could use. Hot water soothes it. Cold water makes it much worse.

So glad you are back home.

With affection

Also Ran1

Just a quick reply before I have to dash off...

Have you tried the herb Devil's Claw?
I've been thinking about you the last couple of days and wondering what may help - lavender essential oil rubbed into your hands was one thing that I thought of - and last night as I was dropping off to sleep Devil's Claw popped into my head.

A client of mine who had osteo-arthritis used it and found it helped her joints to stay pain free and more supple.

Hi LSF,

thank you for the suggestion. I shall go to the Health shop and see if they have any. I seem to remember that there was something called
that in South Africa. anyway, we shall see. I must have the biggest collection of ointments/creams/emollients all of which I am allergic to.

there is one called Double Base which my masseuse uses on the skin of my lower legs and my feet. Also my arms and my hands and this seems not to irritate it. But the symptoms of the swelling and itichiness of the fingers, then the itchiness and peeling, then this really fearful pain still seems to affect my hands and my finger tips. Strange!! I am still typing with difficulty, although the needles in tips of my fingers are not so sharp as they were last week. !! so I am getting better!! Until the next bout!!

thanks for your help

AR1.