Testing the tomato theory

Well, this week, my hands have been feeling great.  The change in medicine levels seem to have made a huge difference.  I have been trying to pay off the medical bills before they get outrageous so I am living on an extreme budget the next few months until I get everything back in order.  This in turn means that I need to eat food from the pantry and use up what we have before buying more.  Before I started researching more about PsA and what others were discovering about it, I thought I would try some new whole wheat canned pasta with meatballs so I bought a few then later realized I should not be eating tomato sauce.  Needless to say, it has been in the cup board for a couple months while I started experimenting with my diet.  Since the pain levels have been low this week, and I knew I would be home this weekend, I thought I would conduct an experiment.  I ate the pasta for dinner last night to see what would happen.  But no surprise, I was more stiff this morning, probably a 5 on my stiffness scale, however, my hands loosened up rather quickly.  It has been 3 hours since I got up and I am typing quite well.  The left hand is now fine but the right is still a little stiff and can only close to about a 1/2 inch gap.  As I said, I wasn't surprised that it was worse this morning but I am surprised that it isn't nearly as bad as I would have thought. 

This week the weather has been changing quite a bit and I do think it plays a part in pain management.  We got some snow yesterday but the effect was rather minimal.  This summer I plan to work on experimenting more with gluten and possibly dairy.  Speaking of dairy, I have a milk allergy (actual allergy, not just a sensitivity) as well as being lactose intolerant.  Milk and milk products make me physically sick if I eat too much and will act as a depressant as well.  However, since I have cut out the nightshades, I seem to be handling the milk products better.  This honestly, makes no sense to me but if it works, it works.  I will experiment more on this over the summer time when I have less responsibility and can afford to not feel the best. 

At this time - February 2012 - I have confirmed the following are triggers for my PsA:

Stress (probably the hottest trigger)
Potatoes
Tomatoes
Some aspects of weather

I haven't written in a few days.  Last Thursday, I awoke to find my three middle toes of my right foot had swollen and seemingly disconnected from the main part of my foot.  The swelling happened in the joint that connects the toes to my foot thus leaving my toe joints out of place.  I had a lot of trouble walking on Thursday and even called in sick to work.  I made an appt. with my rheumy for Friday and he upped my meds.  Over all, the meds are working, swelling is down and joint count is down (15 painful joints as of Friday).  My elbow has full range of motion again and pain levels are down.  This morning my hands are a little stiff (3) and I am still feeling some discomfort in my toes but better than last week.  Food wise, I did have bar b que chicken pizza this weekend  and a handful of potato chips - however no adverse reactions except for some gas.

The good that came out of this is that my boss now knows a bit more about my situation.  He knows how unpredictable it is and I did tell him how much I have adjusted my teaching so that I can still be a productive member of the team.  He knows I cannot move around the room as in the past and that I am trying my best.  However, I know I am not as productive as I used to be.  We devised a back up plan in case I have another bad morning as I did last week.  I informed him that I am taking precautions, that I started an insurance policy specifically for this situation in case I have to take a leave of absence.   Hopefully I won't have to but this way I will be covered if I do.  It would also give me time to prepare for disability, if I need to in the future.  Right now, I am far away from that but when ever I have a surprise pain, it reminds me how quickly things can change with this disease.