Hey everyone, hope you are all well? I'm kinda new to this so u'l all have to bear with me. Iv been reading through forums like this since I was first diagnosed with PA about 6 months ago, so iv finally decided to bite the bullet & join one. So anyway, I'll tell you a little about me & my story.. My names Matthew & I'm a 23 year old builder. Life for me up until november 2010 couldn't of been better, I was living abroad with my fiance, well paid job & expecting
Our first child. Then one day.. BANG, I decide to fall off my motorbike in the middle of the night near our home in turkey. I was actually really lucky to survive, I had a fractured skull in 3 places, ruptured liver & a ruptured spleen. I was rushed to a local hospital in Bodrum (where nobody spoke English) and was rushed into emergency surgery. The operation was successful except for the fact that my spleen was in such a bad way, they had to remove it. I went onto spend about a month in the hospital over there in recovery. It was obviously a horrible experience for me, as none of them spoke English & I only spoke basic Turkish, for the first few days I didn't know what the hell was going on! I just remember waking up in a hospital bed with a nice big 8 inch cut down the centre of my stomach! The next thing I know some nurse came upto me & handed me a jar.. I later found out that it was actually my spleen that they'd given me! I was gob smacked to say the least!! Anyway.. We eventually decided we would have to move back to the UK, as the health care over there is just too damn expensive! So we arrived home, and unfortunately lost the baby through miscarriage. I ended up back in hospital within 6 weeks of being home with what I was told was a 'DVT' in other words a blood clot in my leg.. I was treated for that and sent on my way. Then no more than a week later I suffered a heart attack. I was told it could be related to the accident & the blood clot, but no body really seemed to know what caused it. Because of my age I was transferred upto a specialist heart hospital in Manchester, where I stayed for about 3 weeks. I had a coronary angiogram performed and it did show that some damage had been done to My heart but nothing 'too major' . So I finally started to recover from that, being treated for angina aswel as the heart attack and splenectomy, and low & behold, I started with psoriasis. I have it in a few places (quite embarrassing places if I'm honest) but I just thought nothing of it as I had eczema as a child. But then a couple of months later the joint pain started and my GP put 2 & 2 together and decided to refer me upto the rheumy at my local hospital. She then went on to diagnose me with PA, and put me on some NSAIDS & gave me a couple of cortisone injections in the worst effected areas. These helped for a while but when the pain returned it seemed much more severe & persistent. I have now been started on methotrexate, which I have heard can work wonders? My main problem is that me & my partner lost another child together a couple of months ago through an ectopic pregnancy. Loosing an unborn baby is a horrible experience, let alone two! But this seems to make us want to have a successful pregnancy even more.. It's all we ever wanted! I'm just a bit concerned that this couldn't happen now I'm on MTX.. does anyone have any advice? I'm on a cocktail of medication, I take a total of 18 tablets a day due to my heart problems, immune defficiency(splenectomy), depression, and now my PA. I'm only 23 years of age, and I used to live a really active lifestyle, with my building job and hobbies etc.. This dreaded 18 months has changed all that though, I can't walk upstairs somedays without getting chest pains from my heart, or pain in my hips! It gets me so down.. So I guess I'm just after some friendly advice on whether you think methotrexate could improve my life, and whether it is at all possible to have a baby whilst on it? Sorry for blabbing on anyway, I seem to have gotten a bit carried away haha would be great to hear back from you all.. Thanks for reading ,
Matt.
