Me... #IH #POTS #RA

This picture sums up me both before and now...

How could that be? How could this be me a decade ago and now at the same time? Easy. To me it represents me at many stages of my life. When I was a child, I would run alone and free to find where I fit. While looking for a diagnosis, I was running and chasing doctors. Now, I run (at least in my head) to try to stay ahead of what could happen with the diseases in the future.

These days, the running is to stop the tidal wave from taking me over. Every day is a constant battle between IH, RA and POTS symptoms. If one of them is behaving, something else kicks in...it can be High Blood Pressure of Fibro or some random thing. Yes, I have Hypertension and POTS. Yes I know they aren't found together a lot.

These have been a long time fight...all of them. None of them are a new diagnosis. They all took years, some longer than others. Each one their own battle. RA was officially diagnosed in 2006, along with Fibro. HBP was a pain that started with my RA and Fibro meds. IH came about being diagnosed by accident, as did POTS. Doctors didn't see my symptoms for either and everything was actually attributed to pseudo seizures (which is another battle entirely). Backtracking, all the symptoms have been around for about 30 years now. They just weren't linked to anything but growing up.

Just like so many other patients, we go without being diagnosed for long periods of time. For me, it was many psych evaluations...many evaluations. For the record, I have passed every one. And each time one of my doctors puts me on a psych med, psych pulls me off it because they say the doctors are just being lazy and there's nothing wrong with me that every other person with a long term, life-changing illness (or several) wouldn't have. :)

#IH #intracranialhypertension #POTS #posturalorthostatictachycardiasyndrome #RA #rheumatoidarthritis #chronicillness #chronicdisease #rarediseaseday #blog