By Lene Andersen. Health care writer, RA and disability advocate, wheelchair user and camera nut. Author of Your Life with Rheumatoid Arthritis: Tools for Managing Treatment, Side Effects and Pain
Chronic Christmas on Fashionably Ill
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I was thrilled when Jessica Gimeno of Fashionably Ill asked me for an interview. We talked about my story, Chronic Christmas, and I shared three tips to survive the holidays with "Today, I am interviewing Lene Andersen, author of Chronic Christmas: Surviving the Holidays with a Chronic Illness (paperback and kindle versions available).
The holidays can be stressful for anyone but they can be especially
stressful for people with chronic illness. Lene Andersen’s blog, The Seated View,
is chalk full of inspiration and practical advice you can use all year
round. Lene is 54-years old but says she feels like she’s only 42!
Jessica Gimeno: What is your official diagnosis and when were you diagnosed? Lene Andersen: I was diagnosed with juvenile arthritis when I was nine years old, although the symptoms started five years prior to that. I also have migraines which started in my teens, and was diagnosed with fibromyalgia 12 years ago.
Lene Andersen, author of Chronic ChristmasJG: How long have you been living with illness?LA: I’m coming up on half a century. It’s a very long time to live
with pain and illness, but it also has a positive aspect. This lifetime
of chronic illness has given me a lot of experience that I can use to
help others in the same situation."
Joint inflammation or contractures. Nodules (small lumps under the skin or in other tissues). A weakened or hoarse voice. Children with these symptoms may have been diagnosed with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) or other types of juvenile arthritis . But do they actually have JIA or do they have Farber’s disease? An equine digression When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras. This is an adage in the medical world that encourages doctors to not wander off exploring rare and esoteric reasons for a patient’s symptoms. Because most of the time, that hoof beat of a rash likely isn’t the plague, the joint pain more likely a type of arthritis than the bends (especially if the person has never scuba dived) and you get the picture. But once in a while, it actually is a zebra. And even if it’s first identified as a horse, eventually, the stripes come through. It took five years of my parents running around to different doctors before one finally recognized that I had
Getting a diagnosis of any type of chronic illness can throw you for loop. There is so much to know and you have so little energy. My new slideshow for HealthCentral collects 13 things you need to know as an RA newbie : "Receiving a diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a moment of strange duality. On one hand, you may be relieved to finally have answers for the symptoms you’ve been experiencing. On the other, it can be incredibly overwhelming to find out you have a chronic illness. Wrapping your head around all the new factors RA brings into your life is a long-term process. Here are some of the things you need to know." See the slideshow on HealthCentral . And in case you missed it, here is the Facebook Live I did yesterday talking about this topic:
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