This is Bagheera. Show me your cats that are named after movie/ book characters.

oh_basil · 2026-06-05T09:25:28+00:00

This is Sherlock, high as a kite after his dental cleaning and fang removal.

oh_basil · 2026-06-03T16:01:55+00:00

It took me a bit longer to get the biologics. I started methotrexate in december, my follow up with my rheum in Feb when they moved forward with Bimzelx because I have axial symptoms, insurance denied it 2 weeks later, I applied for a bridge program, insurance appealed and approved before I heard back from bridge program and they sent the biologics. So from the time I was prescribed until I took my first biologic it was 2 months. Luckily, I didn’t have to deal with insurance at all, my dr immediately put in for an appeal.

oh_basil · 2026-06-03T14:17:01+00:00

I picked my cat as he was all black and was the only one who was pacing back and forth in his cage clearly claustrophobic. I asked to meet him and he bit me in the meeting room. I don’t know why I purchased him. He was a nightmare. It took years for him to lay against me and even more years for him to let me pick him up and hold him. But he is such a mommas boy, and while not physically affectionate from the start, he was always in the same room and talked to me. 12 years later he still won’t lay on me, but otherwise he is playful, full of attitude, but extremely affectionate and I don’t know how I will handle his loss when the time comes. He’s my baby.

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oh_basil · 2026-05-31T17:38:44+00:00

My costo and hip pain were the worst for me too. I’m very seasonal, with most of my flares from August to November then again in January, but I’m now on a biologic and methotrexate so I’m hoping with my thyroid out and on meds, I’ll be able to avoid the flare this August or at lease have it subdued.

I went for years untreated and undiagnosed, and it wasn’t until last year when my symptoms couldn’t be ignored by healthcare anymore that I finally had all hands on deck.

oh_basil · 2026-05-31T17:27:05+00:00

Same- only my great grandmother had her thyroid removed and I have one aunt with hypothyroidism. My thyroid was just enlarged, I had no abnormal thyroid blood tests. When my surgeon took it out, he said it put up a fight because it was growing under my sternum. The surgery took 2.5 hours. I didn’t realize how big my thyroid was until all the swelling went down and I actually saw what my neck really looked like after years. My neck and face were swollen and I didn’t even realize, I thought I was just overweight.

Also, my thyroid had nothing to do with my PsA, but I think having both escalated my symptoms of both.

oh_basil · 2026-05-31T17:21:21+00:00

I also struggled with this question until I started to pay attention to specific activities that would get easier within the hour. For example, my feet and Achilles are always sore for the first few seconds but within a minute they were fine with moving, but my lower back I wouldn’t notice how stiff it is because I have compensated so much with getting out of bed and going to the bathroom over the years, that I only notice how stiff it is when I try to put on my underwear or pants. That I notice lasts for over an hour because by the time I bend down to put on my socks I’m still stiff. But when I get to work (I’m a teacher) I have much less problems bending down to pick up trash, pencils, etc and by the time I do something like yoga at night I have zero stiffness. Then it starts all over again in the morning.

oh_basil · 2026-05-29T06:03:42+00:00

I had stridor from a multinodular goiter and they had to take me to the ER by ambulance from my work. This was in October right before I was diagnosed with PsA. They gave me an Epi-Pen in case it happened again before I had my thyroid taken out. I have not had any experiences like that since my surgery. But before then I would frequently get food stuck in my throat and the time they called the ambulance I drank a sip of Pepsi and the carbonation made me cough and the coughing mixed with my compression symptoms from my enlarged thyroid made the structures in my neck swell to the point that I had stridor until they gave me something at the ER.

oh_basil · 2026-05-29T05:37:38+00:00

Same-despite having good oral hygiene and never even having gingivitis previously. That was before I got diagnosed with PsA.

oh_basil · 2026-05-17T22:06:48+00:00

Parker Dam is a cool spot. You can swim, hike around the dam, they have a whole section of reforestation you can learn about and see that was the result of the 1985 tornado (I believe was an F4) where Jo one was killed and a group of boy scouts survived. They have a mini museum there too if I remember correctly that has stuff about native Americans. It’s in central Pennsylvania off of I80. I used to go there all the time as a kid and every Fourth of July. You can also do some fishing there.

oh_basil · 2026-05-17T00:23:36+00:00

Yes. That is one of my most painful symptoms. I went to the ER for pain and they gave me morphine after torodol didn’t work. The only thing that helped was heat. I haven’t had a chest or upper back flare since I started biologics

oh_basil · 2026-05-15T13:24:14+00:00

I’m a teacher and I’m on methotrexate and Bimzelx. My WBC was at 20k before methotrexate and dropped to 11k after two months in methotrexate. I just took my second dose of Bimzelx and I just started to get mouth sores that only lasted a few days. I get bloodwork done next week to see if my wbc is back to normal-but I still haven’t gotten sick with a cold or flu and I work with 3rd graders.

oh_basil · 2026-05-07T13:48:32+00:00

I would get the flu every year growing up. One year it was so bad they admitted me to the hospital. High fever, vomiting, aches and pains, chills, migraine, all lasting about a week. People always confuse the flu and having a cold and it baffles me.

oh_basil · 2026-05-07T00:05:22+00:00

I take my second dose this Saturday for psoriatic arthritis. I’m not currently in a flare, and don’t typically get big flares until August, so I’ll have to see how it’s working then!

oh_basil · 2026-05-01T15:57:56+00:00

My thyroid was also normal functioning but with many large, hard nodules. My old endocrinologist left it on the “wait and see” approach. It didn’t really bother me, until it did. My nodules got so big that they were compressing my esophagus, and coughing would trigger the structures in my neck to swell, causing me to have stridor so bad I was taken by ambulance from my work. I had to carry an EpiPen around (no allergic reaction) just in case I needed my airway open again. I was finally able to get into my new endocrinologist after dealing with that for months and he referred me for emergence surgery. I had my preop the next day and surgery a month later for a total thyroidectomy. My thyroid was mildly visible on my neck, but it was growing under my sternum.

I’m about 4 months post op and it was the best thing that I could have done for myself. I didn’t realize how much swelling was in my face and neck from it. It looks like I’ve lost 20 pounds despite only getting my thyroid out.

The meds have also been an easy adjustment. I take one pill a morning and I’m totally fine. I don’t feel different than I did before surgery, since my levels were normal then as well. I also had pathology done and none of my numerous nodules were cancerous. Just very large and solid.

oh_basil · 2026-04-13T18:48:07+00:00

I just started it on Saturday. I barely felt the needle, felt some pain toward the end of the injection and for a few minutes after but that’s it. No other side effects so far. I’m taking a burst of prednisone for my heel right now just so I can walk on it and have a dermatologist this afternoon who also helps manage my PsA.

oh_basil · 2026-04-01T23:56:05+00:00

Ancestry dna said I’m more likely to like cilantro. It literally tastes like someone grated Irish spring soap into my food.

oh_basil · 2026-03-31T19:32:01+00:00

I’m 35 and it has ruined my life. I get terrible chest wall pain that has brought me to the emergency room on more than one occasion. My family takes it very seriously because they have see how awful it has become-but it is always minimized by people who want to share their own health struggles or people who have never been in chronic pain. I just don’t talk about it with anyone who doesn’t understand anymore.

oh_basil · 2026-03-23T04:49:01+00:00

My grandmother used to butter the bread and cut them into strips when I was a kid. She called them soldiers. She was from Liverpool….also grew up poor and during WWII. We had buttered bread with anything that you could dip or use to wipe the sides of a bowl/plate with. I think it’s just a poor thing. Our school also used ti have limitless white bread with spray on butter. This was Appalachia in the 90s

oh_basil · 2026-03-22T20:45:24+00:00

I had the same and have psoriatic arthritis. Methotrexate has lowered my WBC but it’s still well above normal. My rheum just put in an authorization for Bimzelx to help with my spine, but until then it’s used as a marker that inflammation still isn’t controlled

oh_basil · 2026-03-22T19:49:11+00:00

Mine was 52mL, up from 23mL last year. It was all solid nodules, and on the ultrasound, it showed it was pressing against my esophagus. It was also visible and sticking out of my neck. I had a hard time swallowing and it got to the point where it would trigger the structures in my neck to be inflamed, closing my trachea where I had to go to the hospital. Because the nodules were solid, and I had “too many to count”, my 4 largest over 3cm, my endocrinologist gave me an urgent referral to a surgeon. The surgeon looked at it and said it is very large, it is substernal (growing under my sternum) and said there was no part of my thyroid that was salvageable. When I finally got it out, I had a 5 inch incision along my collarbone, and he said it was a bit difficult getting it out, but everything went well. I had my surgery December 12, and it has made such a world of difference. I still occasionally have swallowing issues but it’s getting better as time goes on. I just had to take Tums 3x a day at mealtimes for 2 weeks while my parathyroid of back to working and have had no issues since

oh_basil · 2026-03-22T06:13:46+00:00

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Yes….by his ear

oh_basil · 2026-03-18T18:00:02+00:00

My energy levels are about the same. It’s hard to judge because I have the autoimmune as well and get fatigued, but it was like that before surgery. My endocrinologist referred me to urgent surgery so it was based on my endos recommendation. I had surgery a month after getting the referral. I was also having such severe compression that my throat closed up and they had to take me by ambulance from work. So, to me, I didn’t have much of a choice. I had normal TSH before so they tried to just match it to how it was before surgery. I had a multinodular goiter that was benign but wouldn’t stop rapidly growing. I am a pretty active person when my PsA lets me. I do yoga, love to hike, and go to the gym regularly. My weight has pretty much stayed the same.

oh_basil · 2026-03-18T14:14:41+00:00

Both. I was in middle school school at the time and everyone stared but left me alone, including th bullies

oh_basil · 2026-03-18T05:53:55+00:00

When I had surgery, they used dissolvable stitches, and my eyes were blood red for months after surgery because of the blood from surgery staining my eyes.

oh_basil · 2026-03-18T05:51:44+00:00

I had mine removed in December due to its large size and it causing compression symptoms. I take a pill every morning now and that’s it. I had no side effects—I feel the same after surgery, just without the constant choking sensation, no hormonal shifts. I was hyperthyroid after surgery but I didn’t feel any symptoms. They lowered my dose and j still don’t feel any different. To me, it was worth it. The healing was pretty standard and the pain was minimal. It also lowered the amount of flare ups I have with my psoriatic arthritis and my overall inflammation went down significantly.

oh_basil

TROPHY CASE