Words to Live By...

Psalm 18:39

"You have armed me well for this fight..." 

(Psalm 18:39, MSG)

JJ has been in Naproxen for the last three weeks. He has still been having some wrist and elbow pain, but the knee pain has lessened - no more "night screams" from pain. However, the medicine has been making him extremely tired.

 JJ is my early riser. He is up when the sun is up (sometimes, he beats the sun) and the birds are chirping away. But, since he started the medicine, he has gone from waking up at 5:30/6:00 a.m. to waking up at close to 9:00 a.m. And then, there are the naps - he started taking 3.5 hour naps in the afternoon. That is a lot of sleep for a boy his age.

So, after week three of being on the meds, I emailed his rheumatologist last week and let him know what was going on and asked if this was normal for him to be so lethargic and tired on Naproxen. He said, "No, it is not normal….., so we might have to consider to switch the Naproxen to another anti-inflammatory agent, particularly if he started complaining of left wrist pain. I would suggest stopping the Naproxen over the weekend, keeping a diary of his pain, and if these are worse, making an appointment to see us next week."

So, I stopeed the medicine last Wednesday night (5/11) and started monitoring his pain. As each day went by, he got a little worse, waking up with more wrist, elbow pain and knee pain (primarily the left side, but occasionally complaining of pain on the right, too). We kept him off the medicine...until last night.

(5/16) JJ woke up yesterday morning with more wrist pain and complaining his hand hurt. At breakfast, he barely made it through half a piece of toast when he said he was not hungry (this boy LOVES breakfast...so I knew something was up). After church, I went to pick him up at his class and the teachers told me he was very tired and asking to be held and rocked. What??? My son? My very active three-year-old boy??

He went to bed last night around his normal time (7:00 p.m.) fell right to sleep. At 9:00 p.m., we heard him screaming in his room. So, my husband and I went down there and tried to calm him down so we could figure out what was wrong. He was screaming because of the pain in his knees. We immediately prayed over him and then tried to get him to calm down. When we knew he was not going to stop and that the pain was really bad, I looked at my husband and said, "Go get the Naproxen."

We gave him his normal dose (5 mls) and heated up the rice sock to put on his knees, but that did not fix it. He continued to scream and cry. So, we did the next thing we knew to do....put him in a warm bath. Before he got into the tub, I asked him to walk for me and that just made things worse because he couldn't walk because of the pain.

The bath seemed to help and, eventually, we were able to calm him down and get him back into bed.

I will be paging the rheumatologist on call today (Dr. Miller) to see what they suggest. Obviously, he needs the NSAIDS, but is Naproxen the right one? It does help with the pain, but it greatly reduces his level of activity and makes him very lethargic.

I will keep you posted on what they decide.

"…for I will contend with him who contends with you and I will give safety to JONATHAN and ease him."

(Isaiah 49:25)

May is Arthritis Awareness Month!

Did you know...

- There are more children with Juvenile Arthritis than those with diabetes, sickle cell anemia, and muscular dystrophy...all of which are more discussed in the media. JA is in the top 4 childhood diseases with cancer, allergies and asthma, and diabeties. And yet there is a huge shortage of pediatric rheumatologists and 1/3 of kids live 50 miles from a doc and 1 in 5 travel more than 100 mi to see doc. (Source: Raising a Child with Arthritis)