For the past three days, I have had a migraine that will not subside no matter what drugs I take for it. I missed work for two days straight now. Imitrex, pain killers, other migraine medicine just are not cutting it. I believe it has to do with my immune system going out of wack due to my AS (ankylosing spondylitis). The last two days, it started with a bad head ache, then my body became stiff and sore as if I were coming down with the Flu, I got a fever (low grade) but still ended up freezing to death in 68 degree room temperature. All I did was lay in bed with the lights off and the windows covered up the best I could to make it as dark as possible with covers over my head so I didn’t have to deal with the light.

If I wake up tomorrow with a head ache, I am going to the docs office and getting a pain killer shot because I can not take this much more. I can deal with not being able to move and in pain due to my joints but this pain in my head has to go. I originally thought I was coming down with something but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

This weather I think is the culprit. It can’t just be warm out. It has to be cold, warm cold warm… etc… This is fucking with my body really bad. You know, I know pain. I live with it. When I get a migraine, most of the time I just want to die versus my AS pain which I just can’t move due to the physical pain and thats fine with me but this migraine bullshit has to go. I can function even at my worst with AS, but even the littlest migraine puts me down for the entire day or until it subsides. The medicines I have taken to relieve my migraine may have done more harm to my body these last three days then the migraine itself.

I am praying that this episode of pain is over…

-Ruger

I called this roughly 6 months after I was diagnosed. It’s only common sense. The human body can only take so much of your immune system attacking itself, and in short, it does one hell of a job destroying itself. Not to mention the drugs and the stress of the pain that you have to deal with. It all adds up (see below). I have been saying all along, my life span has been shortened. People have been telling me “oh no, I know people who take all kinds of drugs and are still alive in their 80′ or 90’s”. Well, I am not going to be one of the lottery winners that make it that long. Although this is some fucked up depressing news, it only confirms what I already knew.

Older medical literature suggests that people with rheumatoid arthritis may live 10-15 years less than their healthy counterparts. Life expectancy is influenced by many factors though, including family history, overall health, and lifestyle choices. The newest class of arthritis drugs, referred to as biologics, hopefully will offer a better prognosis.

# Rheumatoid Arthritis Shortens Life Expectancy
# The Correlation of Life Expectancy and Arthritis
# The Effect of Rheumatoid Arthritis on Mortality

Pulled from:
http://arthritis.about.com/od/rheumatoidarthritis/a/rheumatoid_fact.htm

-Ruger