Introduction: My background

Hello Everyone!
I wanted to start out by going into more detail as to what conditions I deal with and how they've come about to give my readers a better idea as to what I'm talking about in future posts. My health situation has always been interesting but has become so complicated in the past few years that it's not an easy task to explain it.

When I was a child, I had a condition called "Slipped Capital Femoral Epiphysis" (health professionals call it a SCFE "skiffy"). In this phenomenon, the growth plate just below the ball joint on the top of the femur destabilizes and in some cases like mine, completely detaches from the ball joint. In order to fix it, my orthopedic surgeon had to place pins the size of bed screws through the lower part of the break and into the ball joint to reconnect them. A few months later, my other hip showed signs of weakening and was pinned before further damage could occur. It took me over a year and a half to fully recover to the point where I no longer needed physical therapy or a walking aid such as a cane or walker. At the time, I was 11 years old and spent much of my 5th grade year in a wheelchair.
Although I've dealt with sometimes moderate hip pain since that time through my high school years, it did not stop me from doing most things normally. I wasn't allowed to participate in gym class and my doctors treated me like a porcelain doll. Looking back on this, apparently it would have been better to be more active and rejoin sports/physical education rather than let my leg muscles become weak, but that's water under the bridge. I even worked as a cook in a concession stand when I was 16 and while standing all day was a little bit painful, the pain was easily controlled with Ibuprofen.

When I entered college in 2007, I was always busy doing something... I worked at least two jobs at a time, plus took classes full time while living in a dorm. I have always been overweight but I was relatively healthy and enjoyed working to give myself a better future.
I got pregnant while I was in my 3rd semester in college and finished that year in college before giving birth to a beautiful baby girl named Chloe. After she was born, my back began giving me a whole lot of trouble. I continued college a few months later and found myself with backpain almost every night. During the summer of 2010, I was working in an office setting and within 3 days of beginning my job, I began to experience shooting pain in my lower back, traveling down my hips, knees and to my ankles. I worked for another year at various jobs and then found myself in too much pain to make it to work on a regular basis. I lifted something heavy at work one day and couldn't get out of bed for three days afterward. This began my epic journey of seeing many different doctors, specialists, physical therapists and having x-rays and CT scans. I was unable to continue working at this point because the pain was present all day, every day and not well controlled with any medicines or therapies. I applied for disability and was granted it in 2013.

Since 2011 I have seen 3 rheumatologists, 2 physical therapists, a dermatologist, a pain management specialist and my general practitioner. All have had differing opinions as to what is causing the back pain. Some doctors think I have fibromyalgia. Some think some form of arthritis such as psoriatic arthritis due to the fact that I also have psoriasis. It has been concluded that I have some sort of auto immune disorder, but nobody can conclude exactly which one as my symptoms mimic so many different ones. At this time, doctors have concluded that I definitely have fibromyalgia and spinal stenosis with the beginnings of psoriatic arthritis.

All of my health problems seem to be connected in some way or another and just when I think I have all the symptoms a person can think of... another one magically appears. It's extremely frustrating, but thanks to my dad always teaching me to be resourceful and creative, I've come up with a lot of interesting ways to deal with these issues. I hope to share some of my wisdom with my readers that maybe they can benefit from my trials, errors and successes.