Has psoriatic arthritis affected your life

[D Foster]

Psoriasis started around 30 years old and by 33 I was covered head to toe with most types of psoriasis and ended up in hospital for six weeks. This went on for the next few years with two more hospital six weeks sessions and even though I didn't realize that it was PsA at the time by the time I was around 40 it was getting really bad and effecting my walking . The strange thing was that as the PsA started getting bad my psoriasis came under some kind of control though still bad was liveable without effecting life to the same degree as before. The PsA started to get under some kind of control when I started on MTX , I had taken drugs like Naproxen which caused stomach ulcers which gave a degree of relief at the time. I know that many people don't like MTX but it changed my life a great deal, I was looking after the whole of UK at the time and also traveling on the continent so the fact that I could move better was more than compensation for the side effects. Stelara seven years ago now was the game changer for both the psoriasis and PsA and even though I still have to be careful and still have joint problems it's so much better than ever before.