Skeleton Bones and Creaking Tones

Friends, it's Friday - thank goodness!

      Yesterday was about fatigue and today is the other heavy hitter:  joint pain.

Why does Lyme make your joints hurt?  Because it's a stinky-no-good-rotten disease, that's why!  The science behind it, however, is a bit more science-y than that.  Here's an excerpt from WebMD that sums up a lot of what I've heard before: 
     "Chronic Lyme arthritis is a recurring form of joint inflammation caused by Lyme disease...a bacterial    infection... Symptoms of chronic Lyme arthritis include episodes of swelling, redness, and fluid build-up in one or more joints that lasts up to 6 months at a time... Some experts believe chronic Lyme arthritis is caused by an exaggerated response of the body's immune system."  [http://www.webmd.com/hw-popup/chronic-lyme-arthritis]

Do you see this x-ray of the hands?  Every place where two bones meet has the potential to swell up, stiffen, and cause me great amounts of pain - and that's just the hand!  The sheer number of joints in my hands and feet make them extremely susceptible to arthritic pain.  Then there are bigger joints, like the wrists and knees, that have more bony surface area and more natural joint fluid ("synovial fluid" if you're curious) to boil and bulge in agony.  Every freely movable joint in the body has this fluid and thus has the potential to be effected.

Creaking, groaning, bursting, this is the symptom that impersonates anger and rage in how it feels. My body is angry (at me? at Lyme disease? who knows).

 Some days, I'm just a little knee sore which is easily remedied with taking the elevator instead of the stairs..  Others, like Monday and Tuesday, I am so stiff and rusty-feeling that even a full dosage of painkiller doesn't dull all of the pain.  I often don't know how bad it is until I do something like stomp my foot or give a really enthusiastic high-five. Other days, I wake up feeling seemingly ancient bones waging war against each other with every new breath of air. Many days, taking more than 1 paragraph of class notes will cause excruciating pain in my right thumb and index finger.  Recently, I've had trouble driving more than 10 minutes because my right ankle with start roaring at me.  I've taken to wearing an ACE wrap on it all the time which helps, but it's no cure.

I continue to thrive off of your prayers and love.  <3
All my Love,
~Melissa