barack obama

I am a 17 almost 18 year old. I have Type 1 Diabetes. Around the middle of last year I started having knee pains. My knees started aching a lot, but seeing as I’m not the most active, I thought my trouble with stairs was just because I was inactive.

When I started my senior year of high school, I had a class upstairs. As the semester went on, it got harder and harder for me to make it up the stairs.

This brings us to the present. I’m walking with an obvious limp because my hip and knees hurt so much. I cannot use the stairs and my show choir class is just full of pain. My pain extends to my wrists, shoulders, lower back and my fingers.

Along with all the pain I have, there’s a bunch of other things. Like pop up rashes. Like involuntary neck jerks. Like massive headaches.

I wake up and breathing hurts.

By the end of the day, I don’t feel as bad. Less achy, but the headaches, the rashes, the neck jerks stay. I can move a bit better, but that mobility is gone when I wake up.

I recently had my endo appt and got my ANA tested. It came back positive, but here’s the thing. My mom got her ANA tested and after only one test that came back normal, they said “Nothing’s wrong. You don’t need to come back here.”

I’m scared. I scared that if I get tested and it comes back normal, that I’m going to have to be in pain all the time. It... it terrifies me that I might be like this till I die. I’m not making up my pain, but I’m worried someone thinks I am. People ask me what’s wrong and I tell them “Well, I think it’s rhumatoid arthritis” but I don’t know. I’m afraid I’ll never know.

I would also like to note that I am not very flexible nor hyperflexable.