ONE MONTH LATER - BETTER, BUT NEW ANNOYANCE

People who know me know I don't squat. Notice the right arm braced to control my revolting leg muscles and stop me from
toppling over the edge of the cliff.

Okay, I figure it is time for an update. I am taking a very wait and see approach with this whole deal. I will say I think I am in a better spot than I was a month ago. In fact, I am pretty confident in that!

My knees haven't really acted up in a while. The last "flare" was when I stripped the deck to stain it. My knees have been feeling pretty good since I started the injections. They aren't back to normal, but they are definitely better. I did some hiking around Iceland during my recent trip and they weren't ever really an issue. There were a few times where I could tell the power and flexibility of old wasn't quite there, but they felt improved even compared to the Memorial Day hiking of a month or so prior.

On Monday I even went to Sky High Sports, a trampoline park, and bounced around for two hours. And you know what? My knees felt fucking fantastic. Not an issue at all. I was quite surprised. I know for sure that wouldn't have been the case two months ago. I'm sore from that, being out of shape and all, but two days later and my knees still are fine. So I don't think I'll flare from it. And before that would have been a guaranteed flare. Another note of progress was kicking the soccer ball around. It was just in the parking lot, no hard shots or anything, but I was able to pass and stop the ball and do things with nary a complaint from down below. Even some really brisk passes that would have hurt before felt fine.

So that's very encouraging! Unfortunately, I've seemed to develop an IT band issue in my left knee. I was able to run 4 miles last Monday just fine but when I stopped it flared up. I had a small issue with this before the Iceland trip and it did rear up a little during our longer hike there. Nothing that completely hobbled me, but definitely uncomfortable. It's very frustrating. Just when I felt like I could get going again this appears. So I'm going to try to take it easy and hope that can just resolve itself. I think I might be turning my foot inward when I walk/run... this is new, I didn't do that before. I haven't confirmed for sure, but that might be the root cause, or maybe a symptom of something else messed up. Weak left hip? Who knows! Anyways, I'll need to solve that puzzle before I can really make an effort to get going again.

Oh, one more thing to mention. I started to be really nauseous most of the time. Just a general ill feeling. I was pretty sure it was connected to the methotrexate. It was frustrating, just as I seemed to be feeling much better joint wise this thing popped up. I was used to the feeling once a week when I took the medication, but all the time? Hell no. Well, then it popped into my head, I got REALLY bad about taking the daily folic acid supplement. This is prescribed in concert with the methotrexate because it has been shown to greatly reduce the side effects. I started taking it daily again (instead of maybe once or twice a week when I saw it sitting there) and within a few days I felt back to normal. So a lesson there for sure!

Anyways, that's the update from the last month. Focus this month will be quashing this IT band thing and getting back to being active and non completely out of shape.