Stacie Casey

Real Profiles of Rheumatoid Arthritis
Photos © Stacie Casey

Name?

Stacie Casey

Age?

41

Location?

Prague, Oklahoma, United States

How long have you lived with RA?

I have lived with RA since I was diagnosed at the age of 22, so that is 19 years. Although, I think I had it several years before my diagnosis.

What advice would you give to someone who has just been diagnosed with RA?

Take care of yourself! Often times others have no understanding of what is happening in our bodies and we have to be proactive with our health! Learn about your disease and find the best support you can. Keep moving as best you can and enjoy the good days.

Do you use any mobility aids?

I have used wrist splints in the past, but I’m able to go without them currently.

How has living with RA helped to improve your life?

I have developed a better sense of empathy for others. I have become more in tune with my body. I realize that I will soon have to give up teaching due to the degeneration in my spine, but I am super motivated to finish college! I graduate in May from grad school!

Do you have any visible signs of RA?

Yes, both hands have visible nodules in several knuckles. My right wrist is frozen and has very little range of motion. I have trouble with writing sometimes.

Can you please describe some of your favorite coping strategies for living with RA?

My family is very good to help me with anything I need, and I have found a great online community of people who are wonderful. My dog plays a big part too. When I am hurting or fatigued, it seems like he knows and he stays close.

Can you please describe your current medical (traditional and alternative) treatments?

I am currently taking Plaquenil, Methotrexate, Tramadol, and Folic Acid. The Methotrexate has been a life saver for me.

Is there anything else about yourself that you would like to share?

I would like to share my online hobby of t-shirt design! I design for Zazzle and Cafepress.

Forbes: Abbott Petitions FDA To Prevent Humira Biosimilars

In a move that is sure to raise debate about the path forward for biosimilars, Abbott Laboratories has filed a citizen’s petition with the FDA in which the drugmaker asks the agency not to approve any biosimilar for its Humira treatment for rheumatoid arthritis. On what grounds? Abbott argues that the FDA would have no choice but to use trade secrets submitted to the agency when approval for Humira was first sought.

Read More: http://www.forbes.com/sites/edsilverman/2012/04/30/abbott-petitions-fda-to-prevent-humira-biosimilars/

Show Us Your Hands! Releases 1,000 Hands Poster In Celebration Of Arthritis Awareness Month

(May 1, 2012) – Show Us Your Hands! is pleased to announce the release of its 1,000 Hands Poster Project, the latest in a series of successful initiatives aimed at uniting the community of individuals who are living with inflammatory arthritis and increasing the public’s awareness of this group of autoimmune diseases. This poster proudly displays the first one thousand hands which were submitted to the community collage project and is being released today in celebration of Arthritis Awareness Month.

May is National Arthritis Awareness Month in the United States. Its goal is to bring attention to the issues and realities faced by people who live with one of the more than 100 different types of arthritis. More than 46 million people live with arthritis in the US, including 300,000 children. It is the most common cause of disability.

The 1,000 Hands Poster is available for purchase at Zazzle. “This poster is powerful! It represents how individual we each are with inflammatory disease while also showing how strong we are together as a community,” says founding director Cathy Kramer. All funds raised from the sale of these posters go to Show Us Your Hands! An international awareness movement which serves to unite and inspire the inflammatory arthritis community.

The Show Us Your Hands! inflammatory arthritis community collage project debuted in December 2011. People of all ages from around the world are represented in this community project and new photos continue to be added to on a regular basis. The community collage project serves not only as a symbol of the wonderfully supportive inflammatory arthritis community that continues to grow and connect online, but also acts as a reminder that people who live with these diseases should be proud of, and not ashamed of, their inflammatory arthritis hands. By April 2011, the Show Us Your Hands! inflammatory arthritis community collage project had grown to include more than 1,000 hands.

Autoimmune diseases occur when a body’s immune system mistakenly attacks healthy tissue. In the case of inflammatory arthritis a person’s joints are frequently attacked, resulting in chronic pain and debilitating inflammation. The most common inflammatory arthritis diseases are Ankylosing Spondylitis, Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis, Mixed Connective Tissue Disease, Psoriatic Arthritis, Reactive Arthritis, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Scleroderma, Sjogren’s Syndrome, Still’s Disease, and Systemic Lupus Erythematosus.

Show Us Your Hands! is an international awareness movement which serves to unite and inspire the inflammatory arthritis community. For more information, please visit www.showusyourhands.org. Show Us Your Hands! can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.

The Seated View: Customer Service. What A Concept

Case #1: let’s imagine a purely hypothetical situation in which I receive housekeeping services from a particular organization. Let’s further imagine them hypothetically calling me to inform me that my regular housekeeper will be away for five weeks and that they will be contracting out housekeeping services to a temp agency. We could also imagine that I asked whether I will get the same person every week, to which they hypothetically respond that this can’t be guaranteed. Leading to the hypothetical situation of having to take three hours every week – an amount of time that often represents most of my entire workday – to run around after someone telling them how to clean my apartment.”

Read More: theseatedview.blogspot.com/2012/04/customer-service-what-concept.html

Thanks To Everyone Who Contributed To RA Guy’s Birthday Wish!

At the beginning of this month, I shared Rheumatoid Arthritis Guy’s Birthday Wish: with the help of Cathy Kramer and Lene Anderson, I want to turn Show Us Your Hands! into an official 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization by the end of 2012!

In order to do so, however, we needed to raise a significant amount of money to cover all of the various start-up costs: $2,000, to be exact.

As a way of celebrating my birthday and my blog’s birthday, both of which took place during the month of April, I asked people if they could please contribute to the Show Us Your Hands! start-up fund.

I’m pleased to announce that we reached our goal! I have previously thanked all of the contributors privately, but I would now like to publicly thank these people (listed below) for their generous contributions. To everyone who contributed, thank you! You contributions have firmly put us on the path towards achieving our goal of turning this community collage project into a nonprofit organization!

Show Us Your Hands! Start-Up Fund Contributors
Sponsors ($250 Donation) Friends ($100 Donation) Supporters ($10-99 Donation)
Kim ABCSofRA
Anonymous
Brenda Kleinsasser
Carmen Gonzalez
Don Walls
Ginny
Irwin Lim
Jenny Church Wise
Karen Fairbanks
Nancy
Rena Jones
Ambra D. Weidenbener
Anonymous
AutoCommunity
David Waugh
Deborah
Hay Wire
Jennifer Dye Visscher
Jessica Chapman
Jocelyn Phillips
Jodi McKee
Katie Walsh
Kelly RH
Marcia GB
Melissa Hinojosa-Zamora
Nan Hart
Sandra Mirisciotta
Wren

I would also like to thank everyone who has participated in any one of the many Show Us Your Hands! inflammatory arthritis community collage projects. Without your support and your help, our awareness projects would not have been possible!

Over the past few months, Cathy, Lene, and I—in addition to dozens of other project participants and hundreds of people who have submitted photos of their hands—have been hard at work. In April, the Show Us Your Hands! interactive community collage grew to more than a thousand hands. And this coming May, we look forward to releasing both a 1,000 Hands Poster and a Photo Book, in celebration of Arthritis Awareness Month in the United States.

It’s been an honor to work with the wonderfully supportive inflammatory arthritis community that continues to grow and connect online. Together, we have accomplished quite a bit during the past few months. I can only dream about how much more we will be able to do in the coming years!

Stay tuned…for the next adventure of Rheumatoid Arthritis Guy!

Show Us Your Hands! in an international awareness movement which serves to unite and inspire the inflammatory arthritis community.

For more information, please visit www.showusyourhands.org.