Welcome to my blog!
Firstly, thank you for stopping by! Whether you have RA like me and finding joint-friendly things for yourself or your kids to wear or making something for your loved ones to wear or for their kids or just for the love of sewing, I hope you will find a bit of something on my little blog to enjoy. It’s hard to live with RA because I never really feel 100% and each day is unpredictable – how much pain will I be in when I wake up in the morning? How long will it take for me to roll my aching body out of bed? Which joints will be swollen today? Will I have yet another fever? How much fatigue will I be in today? The same questions have been rolling around in my head at bedtime since I got in January of this year. My fingers were crooked for 3 straight months – they curled up in a matter of weeks. I was in tears everyday because I couldn’t move – my family had to help to me dress. Even pulling the tabs on my toddler’s diaper was excruciatingly painful.
It took forever to get an appointment with the rheumatologist who put me on Methotrexate and a short-term dosage of Prednisone with Plaquenil. The crooked fingers started straightening but the Methotrexate’s evil side effects were taking over. I had painful lumps under my skin near my elbows. That rheumatologist upped the dosage and insisted I continue taking all that medication. I had already ran out of the Prednisone which I felt was the only thing making me feel any better but I stopped taking the Methotrexate and the Plaquenil. I switched to another rheumatologist who put me on Arava and was told since I have a G6PD deficiency, I shouldn’t take any Plaquenil.
I know that RA is going to be around in my life forever but when my son’s at school and my toddler is napping, I love spending my good flare-up free days drafting patterns or sewing. During my crooked finger days I developed a hatred for buttons – flat buttons, snap buttons and shank buttons, anything where I have to pinch, pull, push – hate hate!
Right now I’m finding knit elastic and Velcro to be easy for me to sew and wear for myself and the kids. I hope to further explore the possibilities of comfortable clothing that are easy to fasten or just pull over for people like me who suffer from joint problems. If you have any tips or tricks on comfortable joint-friendly clothing, please feel free to share them here.
