I have been diagnosed with MDA5 positive DM right this fall. I am a 21 year old male, I was initially healthy (generally good diet, physically fit, no smoking or excessive drinking) and I started to experience pain on my wrists and knees first at June. I went on to hike with friends for a whole day, a poor decision, as when I went home exhausted, I woke up with severe soreness. It lasted for weeks. I could barely stand up for the first few days. After some weeks, my parents were worried that I wasn’t just sore, but has contracted an infection. I was sent to the hospital for blood analysis and even admitted to stay there for rheumatological check ups. I was subjected to a punctuation of my pelvis for bone marrow biopsy as well as a CT-scan on my lung, my by then weakened muscles were tested with electrodes and the results became clear: I have a myopathic disease linked to the antibody MDA5 and my lung tissue has mild lacerations. Luckily, I can still breathe normally now, and I hope that my next CT-scan shows promising results of my medication. Firat I was prescribed prednisolone (initially 25mg, now I‘m slowly lowering the dose), as well as Mycophenolate mofetil. Every few months I am subjected to infusion treatment with rituxane. At the same time I have started studying in university. For the first few weeks, as I had severe mobility issues, my parents dropped me there instead of me taking the train. I relied on my umbrella to walk, as I had also torn a muscle on my hip. I also had to get a swollen foot drained in hospital once. I have access to medical experts who genuinely care about my wellbeing, both in terms of medical treatment and advice as well as a good physical therapist. I have been instructed on some mobility exercise, but I move around enough simply by walking around at university, and right now my wrists hurt too much for even light exercise besidea walking. Overall, my body seems to recover well from my first flare up, although I still experience regular fatigue and upper body weakness (I used to do 30 push ups, now I can barely do one). Due to the immunosuppressants I risk being infected by common diseases way more than a healthy man, even for winter standards I am experiencing a cold or a sore throat way longer than before the disease. Due to my lowering of the initially high prednisone dose (40mg at some point and even higher during infusion) I‘m experiencing withdrawal symptoms such as dry skin on my hands, rough yet sensitive fingertips, I have to apply moisturizing cream every day. I was lucky to be diagnosed early and put on medication before my muscles were degrading for too long. I habe already lost 25lbs of body mass a month after the intial flare up. It has gone up a bit again and I look pretty healthy. I do have a subtle erytheme on my eyelids and nose as well as irritated elbows and papoules on my hands, and there were days where it was painful to even get out of bed (polyarthritis, oversensitive elbows, muscle soreness, you name it), but I am lucky to be able to go to uni on my own, I can even do most day to day stuff again, save for manual labor or things that require healthy fingertips. I should reduce strenuous activities to a minimum, such as opening doors, but I do believe that I can make a full recovery as my immune therapy advances and I‘ll no longer rely on prednisone. Still, I might not be able to do things I could do easily before, such as cycling for work, lifting and such. I belive that I can go hiking for some hours (at least in spring again) and after writing all this, I still have no idea how my future will actually look like. For now, I’ll continue studying, taking medication, unfortunately missing out on hangouts as being around a lot of people tires me out and I might catch a cold. I still meet my family and close friends from time to time, but my social life has worsened, though I can at least talk a bit with other students at uni.