Welcome And Why We Advocate

Kevin 0:00

Welcome to our podcast When Life Gives You Lovement. I'm Kevin.

palmi 0:06

And I'm Palmi. We consider ourselves disability advocates and intend to highlight some disability issues and things we find interesting that we frequently encounter when we're out and about. Also, some history on disability that we find interesting. This year we're going to include more of the interviews of the people that the disability affects. We hope you enjoy it.

Why Arthritis Is Not Just Age

palmi 0:33

Well, hello everybody, and welcome back to our podcast with Life Gives You Lovins. I'm Kevin. And I'm Palmi.

Kevin 0:44

And today we'll be talking about something that those of you who've reached a certain age are probably getting familiar with already. Arthritis.

palmi 0:58

What's going really going on in your joints?

Kevin 1:03

Yeah, everybody thinks of arthritis as a uh old person's disease, but there are of course different types of arthritis, which may go along with certain conditions or diseases. So we're we're not trying to belittle that fact. As a matter of fact, when I was just a young kid, uh wasn't even re referred to as arthritis. It was rheumatism. And that I think translated into rheumatoid arthritis.

palmi 1:48

Yeah, that's a type. But that's um caught that's actually a autoimmune disorder. We'll talk about that later.

Kevin 1:57

Yeah, like I said, they're different types, and we're not trying to belittle any type. We're just going to explain a little bit about what they are.

palmi 2:09

So when you you say arthritis, we usually think of morning stiffness or joint pains. And we all kind of have that when we first get up in the morning, getting out of bed.

Kevin 2:20

As we get older, more so.

palmi 2:22

Yeah. Let's do a little more.

Kevin 2:24

In our case, I mean. Yeah. In most cases, if you are have arthritis. As you get older, inflammation happens in your joints after, you know, using and abusing your joints. Um, they get arthritis, and which is just inflammation in those in those joints, and they the deterioration of the joints. So that is the clear the definition of arthritis is inflammation or deterioration of the

Core Symptoms And Daily Impact

Kevin 2:50

joints. It includes over a hundred plus conditions, including core symptoms like with joint pain. Okay, joint pain, stiffness, swelling, and reduced mobility.

palmi 3:11

Yeah, that's common. You even had that before you were disabled.

Kevin 3:16

I can tell you, yeah. A lot of that uh that pertains particularly to me is uh a lot of that comes from military service. Just plating wear out your joints, and injuries, uh repeat of injuries over and over. Sometimes there are injuries, but uh relatively speaking I was injury free.

palmi 3:45

During your service, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kevin 3:50

I mean, eventually I wasn't, but uh when I got out, I was relatively injury free. I mean, there are people that have had like you know concussions, multiple concussions, people that have uh like well you ripped your um your arm. Uh there are people that have been you know involved in like uh a vehicle from the motor pole running over them, yeah, rolling over them, so to speak. Yeah, there's just all kinds of stuff that could go wrong. Yeah, and then injuries during uh Yeah, and when you have something like that affect your uh joint, it just doesn't go away. Your joint is never really the same. Yeah.

palmi 4:46

I've had it with because I have um fibromyalgia, and so I have um inflammation, I I have the autoimmune disease, and so the inflammation is within the joints, so it's just painful all the time. Um, and that's the swelling, the stiffness, uh, lack of mobility. Uh you're during the autoimmune disorders, you don't regenerate your uh during sleep, you don't regenerate the your muscles in your teeth to get relief from that.

The Five Major Arthritis Types

Kevin 5:17

So there is um uh five major types of arthritis. Um we broke down the most common forms and simple inform explanations of them. So go ahead and you can start.

palmi 5:35

Yeah, osteoparthritis, which is basically rare terrain degeneration, which I think is probably the most common, yeah. Rheumatoid arthritis, which involves an autoimmune inflation.

Kevin 5:52

Inflammation, yeah.

palmi 5:54

Inflammation. Inflation. I know, inflammation.

Kevin 5:59

This this one is gonna be a lot of complicated words.

palmi 6:02

Yeah, it's gonna be a lot of flups in this one, folks.

Kevin 6:06

Yeah, buckle up. So um my dad had the next one. It was gout, which is urachic acid uric acid and crystal built-ups. He had that in his neck, believe it or not. He had it removed from his neck when he was like very young. He had a big scar. They removed gout from his his you think of uh he would they were very dirt poor, you know, multiple kids.

palmi 6:30

So uh usually um rich foods, yeah. I think yeah, I think I'm behind the time because how can you get uh gout when you're young?

Kevin 6:44

I don't know. He was very I think he was under 20 when he had it removed. He had a huge scar there where they removed um the I guess gout from something, but he always told us he had gout. And I mean, like I said, you usually get it from rich foods like you know, like liver and uh you always think of what's the goat or the goose pate and all that stuff.

palmi 7:11

Um kings used to get it a lot medieval times, only royalty got it, right? Well to do uh people had access, mostly in their feet and stuff, I think, right?

Kevin 7:23

King one of the kings had it in their feet, and they had to remove his toes and stuff like that.

palmi 7:28

I remember that story, but uh well, I mean that that is basically the way I learned about was by reading history. Yeah, that was when you know poor people didn't get no because they couldn't eat that good.

Kevin 7:44

And my dad had so many kids in their family, I can't imagine he was eating that great, but yeah, he had kids uh got when he was young.

palmi 7:52

Uh maybe he had a secret pate habit you don't know about. Okay, now we're up to psoriatic arthritis, and I think that's the one you mostly see a lot advertised on TV because it goes along with psoriasis. Yeah, psoriatic skin condition, yeah.

Kevin 8:16

And I think it's I think that's genetic too. It might be have a genetic connection too.

palmi 8:23

Hey, for all I know, they all have some sort of genetic. As a matter of fact, I think a lot of them do because like um my mom had very severe arthritis in her hands.

Kevin 8:38

Uh-huh.

palmi 8:39

And my hands really hurt when I go out. Uh do you call when I used to do inventories of pizza?

Kevin 8:50

Yeah.

palmi 8:51

Okay, if I had to count stuff in the freezer or in the refrigerator, I had to wear a gloves, or my hands would just be in agony.

Kevin 9:02

Yeah. It's now I paid Kevin to say this next one, so say the next one.

palmi 9:09

Uh buck love again.

Kevin 9:12

I may be wrong.

palmi 9:14

Ankylosing's body litis.

Kevin 9:18

It was worth the money I paid him. Which is spine-focused uh inflammation, which I have no idea what that is. I think basically in your back, right? I think it may cause a lot of back issues.

palmi 9:35

Oh, really?

unknown 9:36

Okay.

palmi 9:37

So you have um as far as I know, I can be totally wrong on that and feel free to blame me. I am not a doctor, so but I believe ligaments are involved, the calcification of ligaments.

Kevin 9:55

Yeah, but you have bone spurs. That's what's causing your pain of your um T T3.

palmi 10:01

But I also have calcification of ligaments.

Kevin 10:04

Oh, okay.

palmi 10:05

And that is what we all generally get the older we get.

Kevin 10:10

Okay.

Why Arthritis Happens Over Time

Kevin 10:12

Okay, so next we're going to compare osteoporosis and rheumatory arthritis, and why um our arthritis happens is the we said wear and tear, the autoimmune dysfunction, crystal buildup, here's where we talk genetics, age, and lifestyle factors. And the more you like if you have a job that requires you, like I I baked most of my life and standing up on hard uh cement floors, my ankles are awful, just terrible. I mean, I they're not steady. Well, I don't think I had good ankles to begin with, but um, they've not gotten any better as I've gotten older, um, along with my hands too. Um, a lot of decorating cakes and stuff like that. I've had I had what was that surgery I had um on my wrist for carpal tunnel. Carpal tunnel, yeah. And it was he had to clean up my um the arthritis in my wrist um before he did that because I had so much uh buildup in there. And same with my knees. When I had my knees checked to see, um, they said I need to have my knees replaced. And they said I had there's they did it up from one to four, and I'm at a three. Um, so they said you have to wait until you're almost like a four for the cartilage wear down. Uh, and they said that it there had a lot of our arthritic um damage in there.

palmi 11:40

How good was it they said that less than two months ago. I know that uh hasn't Darren had both his knees replaced hips. That would be uh Pobby's brother.

Kevin 12:00

Yeah.

palmi 12:02

That's Darren. Hi, Darren.

Kevin 12:03

Yeah, anyway. And uh also in addition to the um reason that arthritic right arthritis happens is injuries and infections. And in Darren's case, that was infection. He fell on a rake. That was his knee, though. He did have his, I don't think he's had his knee replaced. Maybe it was knee. I thought it was his hips, but um he fell on a rake when he was really little, like five or six. He had gangrene in his knee. So that was definitely infection.

palmi 12:40

Okay.

Kevin 12:41

The next section we're doing is why behind the symptoms.

How Doctors Diagnose Arthritis

palmi 12:47

How doctors diagnose it. Uh read off the different ways.

Kevin 12:56

Yeah. So physical, physical exam, which is pretty common, um, imaging, which is the x-rays, the mRIs, the ultrasounds, blood tests for the inflammation and the autoimmune autoimmune markers. That's what I did um for the um fibromyalgia. At the time, there they didn't have an autoimmune marker for that. It was the lack of certain markers, I guess. And and then that explains how diagnosis helps determine the types.

Treatments That Actually Help

Kevin 13:30

And then next section would be treatment, the up treatment options that actually help, um, that are cut cover the major uh categories.

palmi 13:40

I like the way they worded that treatment options that actually help.

Kevin 13:46

Yeah. I don't know they help that very much. I've got them working with a shoulder issue right now. I had my shoulder redone and it didn't work, didn't do it. I had a torn rotor cuff, and it's arthritis. I know that's it's the pain. And uh I use that topical stuff, um bent um buntorin, buntorin or whatever it is, and um I don't know that actually it kind of takes a little bit of the pain away, but not all of it, and it's supposed to be designated for arthritis pain.

palmi 14:21

Well, I would assume the reason for that is um it does alleviate pain, but it can only go so far so much pain on the outside uh from the outside, right?

Kevin 14:37

Yeah, I take Tylenol two times a day, but trying to limit it just to two times a day.

palmi 14:44

Yeah, I don't I don't think they recommend nowadays taking unless you're under doctor's advice, to uh take anything regularly like acetomyofin or ibuprofen.

Kevin 15:02

For arthritis? No, it says here they do recommend that in general, yeah. You know, well they said um let's see you had NSADs, NSADs headaches. Yeah, they said NSAIDs and Tylenol are the two top recommendations for treatment, and then the cortisone injections, and then DMARDs, which I don't know what that is for the autoimmune types.

palmi 15:31

I think that's the one where they draw your blood and do the analysis for what type you have.

Kevin 15:38

Yeah, but this is the the treatment, so it's got to be something to do with treatment.

palmi 15:43

Well, um, I know we kind of bloss over this, but how doctors diagnose arthritis. I think uh they don't normally draw blood for arthritis in the US.

Kevin 16:00

It says they do. Or autoimmune markers.

palmi 16:05

They've never drawn my blood and I have arthritis.

Kevin 16:10

I don't know. Physical therapy, of course. I think that's probably that's what you've done a lot of physical therapy.

palmi 16:19

Weight management and low impact exercise.

Kevin 16:23

And I I they don't place it, they don't have it on here, but um I get a lot of relief from that um oh that little shocky thing, whatever that's called. Where they has little shocks that they sense throughout your body. I can't remember what it's called now, but I get a lot of relief from that. Uh wait you said weight management. Oh stem, stem therapy, yeah. And when surgery isn't uh becomes an option, then they do surgery, I guess. Um focus on realistic expectations, uh management's not cures.

Heat Cold And Daily Habits

Kevin 17:09

And practical tips for daily life, uh heat versus cold. Like I like heat, but you prefer the cold. Or you don't like either, do you?

palmi 17:23

No, not really.

Kevin 17:24

Yeah, you're sensitive to both, I guess. And I like gentle stretching, um, and I like massage, and you don't like either of those. That's correct. Um, joint-friendly activities like walking, swimming, and cycling. I get a lot of relief from my um fibromyalgia from uh auto um aquatherapy when I get into the pool or or hot tubs. I get a lot of relief from my fibromyalgia from that. I do not take medicine for my fibromyalgia, I just treat it with massage and aquatherapy. Ergonomic, ergonomic adjustments for home and work. That'd be like your seat for your chair.

palmi 18:12

Yeah, the uh your balls see under my track ball.

Kevin 18:18

Your trackball. Yeah, you have a wrist.

palmi 18:20

Yeah, the trackballs, because otherwise I end up bouncing off stuff, but that's for you know how prevent carpal tunnel on your wrist. Yeah, yeah.

Kevin 18:36

Just the angle where you yeah, I think people just are used to having arthritis and they just put up with it.

palmi 18:46

Well, I think um a lot of course there's a lot of uh personal preference uh involved in this. It's like choosing what your favorite color is, but I know in the US some of the favorite uh like are gonna make things almost through like waves of uh fashion or popularity in a way. Yeah, like standing desks, standing desk, yeah. That's what I was thinking.

Kevin 19:22

And then they have that that thing that you bicycle, you can bike underneath a uh desk. I've seen that become popular for a while.

palmi 19:31

Yeah, yeah. And for for a while it was uh before it would the desk or the the bike thing, it was uh a certain chair.

Kevin 19:43

Oh yeah, or ergonomic chair. Yeah, that's kind of like the what this chair is. This we bought this before it is kind of yeah, we bought this for you before you were in the wheelchair. Uh Rose and I bought this for you for Father's Day, I thought, one year.

palmi 19:58

And then it was golden ergonomic chair, but yes, it is.

Kevin 20:02

It's got uh you can adjust the lumbar support, and you that's right, yeah. You can adjust the height of everything.

palmi 20:09

So yeah, unlike my real chair pack.

Kevin 20:16

Oh, you can't adjust the your lumbar support.

palmi 20:20

Yeah, engineers who make these fancy real chairs are obviously not the ones that use them. That's all I can say.

Kevin 20:29

You said that before.

palmi 20:30

I've got a cruise served uh raise or lower my back. So yeah, I can't do that myself. Somebody else has to do it. Because I have to sit here and say, yeah, that's about where I want it.

Track Symptoms And Closing Notes

Kevin 20:46

So we encourage listeners to track their symptoms and talk to their clinicians and see what they can what kind of help they can get from them. Um and uh share with your doctor and see what they can what kind of help they can get. Is there any housekeeping we need to do this week?

palmi 21:09

Um just the one that always stands. Uh please visit our website www.whenlife gives you lemons.net. And uh you'll uh totally free to increase Nickel send us an email with ideas, suggestions, or how a certain episode resonated with you, whether you liked it or didn't, you know. And if you have ideas for what we should be doing instead, by all means, we're always hoping to have new ideas.

Kevin 21:52

Yep. And as we always say, when life gives you lemons, bake lemonade. Bye now.

palmi 22:00

Oh, one more thing we need to mention is your bakery. When life gives you lemons, bakery.

Kevin 22:08

Oh, it I've changed it. When life gives you sourdough, bakery.

palmi 22:12

Ah, see that's why you need to talk about it because I didn't know that. But uh Palmy's been doing a lot of uh pop-up work with baking. And no, unless you're in the local area, we cannot be a light to you. Because things big goods no preservatives that that we bake that Palmy makes don't have preservatives in them. So if we mill them, you're likely to get a moldy loaf of sardo or whatever. Yeah, either moldy or stale.

Kevin 22:56

There you go.

palmi 22:57

Probably depending more on the time of year than anything else.

Kevin 23:05

Yep.

palmi 23:07

Okay, that's all for now, folks.

Kevin 23:10

See you soon.

palmi 23:11

Talk to you next time.

Kevin 23:13

Bye.

palmi 23:14

Bye.