Where's My Health At?

It's official.  I made a new category of 'Health' here at Manarea because mine is probably going to become something I get to deal with from here on out.  I'll probably be learning a lot about whatever it is I actually have and I'll probably need to vent from time to time.  Your welcome.

So here's where I'm at currently:

Wrists - Just finally wrapped up my diagnosis with the Ortho Doc this past week.  After some X-Rays and MRIs his take is I am suffering from some sort of arthritis.  My carpal bones are all very upset, more so in the left than the right.  This was both good and really bad news.  Good in that all my other soft tissue appears to be intact so I don't have to worry about doing any permanent damage to anything in that realm with any activity that I want to do.  Really bad in that the damage has already been done and I'm probably looking at a life sentence of dealing with my #shittywrists.

So right now there are three main possibilities:

Osteoarthritis - This is just the 'wear and tear' form of arthritis and is more common to appear when you are older after a 'lifetime of use'. But if you jam a lifetime of use into 1/3 of a lifetime...voila!  This is what I'm hoping it is because that would limit my issue to just my wrists.

Rheumatoid Arthritis - This is the auto-immune kind.  I was tested for this last summer when I was all messed up and it felt like every joint in my body was off the rails.  That has since calmed down and my blood tests were negative but the ortho Doc told me about 'seronegative' forms of RA that don't show up on tests.  So that is still in play and I'm going to have to wait a bit to see what my symptoms do.

Lyme - One of the most common symptoms of Lyme is joint pain that mimics arthritis.  I was also tested for this (twice) and both times it came back negative.  But both times they did the most common Lyme titer blood test which I've read is basically crap and very commonly gives false negatives so that is also still technically in play.  Again, going to have to wait to see what my symptoms do.

So its into pain management mode.  Therapeutic dose of Advil basically around the clock.  Lots of ice.  Recently did some research on wrist support specifically made for riding and luckily motocross and DH has all kinds of options that don't limit the range of motion you need for riding but provide a good amount of support.  I went with the EVS WB01 due to stellar reviews on MTBR.

They have rigid foam pads you can mix and match to get just the amount of support you want and people seem to love them.  They seem a bit bulky but they are designed so you can still wear gloves and grip bars without issue.  Should have them in about a week.  Fingers crossed they work well for me.  Review post coming after some use...


Foot - Been in 'The Boot' now for almost 3 weeks.  Made a bunch of progress so far.  Swelling on the top of the foot is down and I am basically pain free.  I had always thought this came about due to walking on the ball of my foot a lot due to urchin spines but I guess now there is an off chance that the issues with my metatarsal joints is also arthritic in nature so I'm going to have to keep an eye on this as well.  WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

So it looks like my joke from last year that 80% is the new 100% is now permanent.  Which sucks but I can at least work with that.  I'll eventually figure this out and get to making my 80% as good as my 100% used to be.  Onward and Upward.