I am a very athletic person. I come from a family of athletes, my father a former football/baseball/basketball player, my mother a former gymnast, and my siblings all involved in some form of sports. I came out of the womb moving and continued to be a mover and a shaker as grew older. In the second grade, I came home with a very swollen arm and hand and two very tired eyes. My mother rushed me to the emergency room where we waited and waited and waited, just for them to tell us that they didn't know what was wrong. We were sent to another doctor, who sent us to another, and finally I ended up in the hands of a "specialist" Dr. Gorman. She told my parents and me that I was a one-in-a-million child with a special condition, dermatomyositis, meaning that I had a disease mimicking symptoms of juvenile arthritis.
How did this happen to me? What was it? Now that I am older and have moved on in my life, it is hard to remember all of the details and the specifics. From what I do remember being all of those years ago, dermatomyositis is an auto-immune condition where my body sees my muscles as a threat and attacks them. I continued to get weaker and weaker for the next year because of this disease; it was hard enough to participate in gym class and even recess, but it when it hurt to sit down and get up, that is when I needed special treatment. I was given drugs like prednisone and methotrexate daily and weekly, and was a very stationary child for about a year and a half.
I did get better continually until it finally "went away," or at least was not affecting me any more. For two years I was DM-free, and then it slowly crept back up on me in middle school. Dr. Gorman caught it right away, and by my sophomore year of high school I was back to being a healthy kid again. I continued my dancing as I had always somehow been a part of, and even joined track and cross country teams. Today I am still athletic and have kept dancing as a way to stay in shape.
It's odd that the auto immune response would come and go. A quick google search led me to find that it does, in certain cases, go away completely as the individual matures. I hope this is the case with you, and that you stay well and healthy.
ReplyDelete'derma' (skin) myo (muscles) itis ('it's broke').
ReplyDeleteAnother of these scary and pretty much not understood problems with the immune response. Than gods they found a way to help. But it's so scary what can go wrong and how little we often know.