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Dealing with RA at 34
by, Eveira Prados

Not even in my saddest dreams I had seen my self with this condition. I always thought it was a condition that people acquire at their senior years. My mom has it, my aunt and grandma; but it didn't occur to me that it could be in my genes. Well it is. The National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases states that "individual genes by themselves confer only a small relative risk of disease. Some people who have these particular genes never develop the disease."[1]  So, I asked my self. Why I acquired it at this age and "healthy"?  After some research I came to the conclusion that most likely was trigger by the eight years of contraceptive use, since their "use may alter a person's likelihood of developing rheumatoid arthritis."[2]  I knew some with the condition, since my mom has it. I tried learned about the condition and improvements. I constantly look at her hands and elbows to see how swollen they are or if her movements are limited.

I am a high school teacher, active mom of two awesome girls, and married to an awesome and energetic man. Consider my self a young an active woman, with Black Belt in Olympic Style Taekwondo. I enjoy roller coasters a lot. Proudly rider of the highest rollercoaster of the world, "KindaKa"! Well I guess I made my point. I wasn't ready for this diagnosis. But I am thirty four and with rheumatoid arthritis. A condition in which almost all the joints of the body get swollen, causing a wasting of the cartilage and causing a possible erosion of the bones that could end in osteoporosis. I couldn't digest this information, it was simply too much. No wonder I was having trouble doing one of the things that I love to do the most, write. Resuming, RA is a painful and chronic disease. 

I remember having random body pain and stiffness since I was in college. Hey! but I mean random as random it can get! This was fourteen years ago. So imagine me, attending to different doctors during all theses years without a diagnosis. I will never forget my first doctor, to whom I complained of severe pain in my hands along with swollenness and redness. He gripped my hand roughly and literally through it back saying, "your hand looks fine, I see anything wrong with it!" I remember feeling mad and worried. From there until today doctors couldn't find the source of my illness. When my situation got worst during the last two years, I felt so uncomfortable trying to explain what part of the body hurt. I would say something like, "hummm let me see, all over me!" Now I understand why, but at that moment it truly felt like I was the worst whiner ever. I asked my self if I was by any chance hypochondriac. It wasn't after resent field trips to Washington, with my students that I became determine to find what the problem was. After a day walking I could not get out of the bus. I simply couldn't walk. In a lot of pain I made it to my house where my husband helps me all the way up to my bed. I said to him, "this is it!" crying of desperation of the unknown, "what in heaven was going on with me?"  "I can't take it anymore!" I finally requested my doctor a referral to a specialist, which didn't make sense to him since the results from the initials labs where negative. Finally my doctor (rheumatologist) explained to me that I was under the ten percent of woman that do not give positive to the rheumatoid testing; but all my symptoms pointed towards it. And finally, I am under a medication that actually works and makes me feel better!