Have you tried this?

When you get sick you suddenly find that everyone seems to know how you can get better. People see you hobbling around in pain and they can't help but ask, which is fine but then they also remember that their cousin's husband's ex boyfriend or what not who either has RA or read something about RA, told them that something is definitely supposed to "cure" all RA symptoms.
This whilst understandable does get irritating very quickly.

So what different "cures" are there? well the ones people know about are mainly food related.

These are the once I have heard of so far:

Don't eat meat
Eat only raw food (this applies to meat as well as vegetables) and eat a lot of raw liver and fish
No Chocolate (this one the doctor tells you about)
No Coffee (and this one)
Eat fatty food
No Alcohol (also a doctor one)
Drink loads of milk
Don't eat any citrus fruits
Don't eat gluten (this means no pasta, couscous, bread, soya, pizza etc)
No dairy products (milk, yogurt etc)
things that grow during the night (this apparently covers potatoes and all rot vegetables)
Cook everything fresh, nothing frozen and nothing with additives or preservatives (this one ups the price of a weekly shop considerably)
No sweets of soft drinks unless completely natural
No fish (this one I find strange as it's been medically proven that large doses of Omega 3 helps symptoms)
Eat bones soup every day

As I am sure you understand the main issue with following these are that if you followed all of them you would starve to death! Also a lot of them contradict each other.
Now I have actually tried some, when you are in a lot of pain there isn't many things you wont try.
I have tried the no Coffee, no chocolate, no gluten, no conservatives or preservatives and all raw diets.
All that happened is that I lost a lot of weight, but then starving yourself does have a tendency to do that!

So whilst I appreciate that fact that people want to help, please don't give me diet tips unless you have had the same problem yourself and it actually worked!

Now do I believe that none of the above works? Well no, I actually think they might, after all one of the believes are that Arthritis isn't just a case of your immune system going bonkers but that it is actually trying to attack something that is hurting the body, but that it can't "cure" the problem, and as such end up causing more damage to the body trying to cure it then the actual issue that made it start attacking.

It would then make sense that perhaps you are oversensitive to something already in your body or "allergic" so to speak. If you then stop ingesting whatever you are over sensitive to your immune system would stop trying to attack it and the symptoms would go away. So yeah I believe that in some cases the diets may actually help. But in my case it definitely wasn't anything I ate!

Juvenile Arthritis

Dear Prime minister,
whilst I'm not your number one fan I would like you to listen to the following video and do what the kids ask, as whilst I'm a grown up and think Arthritis really really sucks I can't imagine how much worse it had been if I got it as a child.

The thing is...

I realise that I have not been writing for quite some time (October last year) and that most likely no one is still checking for updates, but here I am.

So why have I not been updating my blog you ask (or don't)? Well a lot started happening last year and still is, which is why I dropped of the planet, sadly none of it is good.

After my once in a life time trip I came back to the UK and settled in to my normal day to day life. Everything was absolutely wonderful and I was planning my next trip which was to be climbing Kilimanjaro, and was supposed to have been this year.

But as I am sure many of you know life does have a tendency to throw you a curveball when you least expect it and I got sick. I started feeling achy last summer and it continued for months slowly getting worse until I got diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis 3 days before my birthday.

Now if you are anything like me you probably believe that Arthritis is something only old people get and that it just means that your joints get achy when it's cold outside, sadly it turns out I was wrong.

RA can happen to anyone at any age and it's far more then achy joints. Some people are lucky and get a mild case where it means exactly that, they are in pain for awhile and then it passes (in interwal's) but most people have it far worse. Untreated the pain gets worse and suddenly you find that you can't even walk down the road to get a litre of milk.

There is also a not so pleasant list of other things you find out. For example your life expectancy is shortened by 10 -15 years and you are suddenly in the risk zone of getting a heart attack or stroke.

On a more day to day basis you find out that most people have to give up work within 10 years of being diagnosed as their bodies can no longer handle working and you suddenly realise no company wants to hire you as they worry you might take a lot of sick leave (even if you never take any sick leave when you work for them as a temp).

On a more personal note you find out which of the people in your life are people who will actually be there for you when you need them, in my case the answer to that question was not what I expected it to be but not in anyway all bad.


I am better now then I was when I first got diagnosed. It's hard to explain to someone exactly how crap you feel as it's not always obvious and most people assume that you are exaggerating. All I can say is that on a bad day I was not physically able even to take the bus to work and had to have my colleague pick me up and hope that you believe me.
I had to give up making jewellery and dancing and could no longer go out with my friends at the weekends.

Your perspective on things change, like a good day for example, a good day stops being what it used to be and starts being a day when the pain is manageable and you can do some of your normal everyday shores like vacuum or do a food shop.
I am getting more good days lately and the quality of them have improved a lot. I can walk to work again and I even managed to go clothes shopping a couple of weeks ago (which I haven't done for months), I have even started dancing a bit again and am planning to start making jewellery again too.

I am still waiting for a good day to be a day without ay pain and I am still fighting for that to be a possibility (how I will tell some other time) and I am still determined to fulfil my dreams and do the things I love.

I don't like talking about being sick because I don't like being perceived as weak, but I realise that everything in my life has turned into this disease, and I don't want that to just be a bad thing so I want to fight and work to help people like me in anyway I can and I think a good start is to be open about it to make sure more people understand it.

So I am starting my blog again and am doing so by telling everyone I got RA.

I am going to kick this RA's butt and I just though it was about time I told everyone about it.

Pictures of Reading.

The other morning I took my Camera with me when walking to work since it's such a beautiful walk. On the day in question it was also very cold so plenty of frost on the ground. I know scenery pictures can be a bit boring for other people to watch but I just thought it looked so pretty that I had to post some.

The local gas tower, not the prettiest sight in the world but it is part of the scenery so felt wrong to not include it.





Walking to work on a glorious day like this always cheers me up :-)


Big baby swan!


Isn't he cute, it's like he believes I can't see him if he keeps really still.








If you look closely you can see the steam coming off the water

Questions questions..

If you want to start up on your own (so to speak) who can you ask or where can you go to find out if you need any certificates such as health and safety and/or insurances?
I mean it's easy enough to just go along with an idea but then you don't want to be buggered because you find out you needed something that you didn't have.
I Know that if I do start my own business idea I need to register and I need public liability but other then that I don't have a clue.
How do I find out?

I finally solved the riddle...

I was going through Swedish songs on YouTube. I guess I was feeling a bit melancholic remembering my youth (don't ask me why because I honestly don't have a clue) and I came across Björn Afzelius. Now he and the Hoola Bandoola Band is one of my mums favorites so I grew up listening to him a lot.

Now this song is my favourite:



I used to play this song over and over again when I was young and suddenly I realised why I turned out the way I did, and more importantly its due to my mother.
It's because I listened to song like this about following you heart and doing the right thing and living dangerously etc. So technically it's my mus fault because she played the songs ;-)

Anyways for the once of you that aren't Swedish the song title means Nine lives and it's about all the crazy things he's done in his life and the crazy things he hopes his kids will do because the idea of not doing any of those things petrifies him, because it would be a boring life.

Christmas Craft Fair

I've just created a Facebook page for the Christmas fair I'm arranging on the 27th of November. It's the first event page I've ever done so still getting the hang of it! If you are interested in seeing what will be for sale etc please check it out and tell your friends too :-)

Christmas Craft Fair

27th of November 2010
All items handmade.
Coffee and cakes for sale.
Come in from the cold and support local artists whilst buying Christmas presents!
Above RISC and the Global Café in Reading