After my anaphylactic adventures over New Year’s, I decided it was time for a fresh round of bloodwork to see just how my inflammatory responses were doing.
I got them back and it shows exactly what you’d imagine from a patient with an active autoimmune condition. My sed rate, or erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) made a significant jump from last measurement.
I’d been on the high end of normal for almost two years and this set returned with doubling of the previous number. This biomarker is used in conjunction with C-reactive protein (CRP) test to determine overall inflammatory responses. That test came back modestly elevated but not atrocious. I also have elevated IgA levels, also known hypergammaglobulimia so that’s a bummer.
It would seem that my relatively well controlled autoimmune disorders (psoriatic arthritis and ankylosis) are moving to an active phase.
Given my use of IL-17 inhibitor injections along with a pain management protocol, lifestyle and nutrition management and a focus on holistic interventions, these results are obviously quite disappointing to me.
It would seem 2024 was harder on me than I’d have preferred and 2025 will be a year of doubling down on holistic therapeutics. Red light, infrared sauna, cryotherapy, hyperbaric chambers oxygenation, and any other anti-inflammatory treatment I can throw at it. Not that I’m looking forward to trying get another round of elimination diets but needs must.
I’ve not changed my the cornerstone therapy secukinumab since the pandemic, so it may be time to see other options like Janus Kinase (JAK) Inhibitors.
I’ve tried Tumor Necrosis Factor (TNF) Inhibitors as well as methotrexate (otherwise known as chemotherapy) and none of those treatments (Humira, Embrel) helped much and dosing on and off of biological injections is a long process. It can take up to six months to see results and changing a treatment that has been working comes with significant risks.
I’m lucky that even with these biomarkers I am still functional. I am able to work semi-normal hours and am able to groom and exercise. I have no personal life to speak of nor do I have hobbies beyond my work (unless reading counts) so I’m lucky to love my family and work enough to have it provide enough meaning to keep going.
Much of my success in treating this chronic complex case has been made easier with the breakthroughs in artificial intelligence.
Even as my physicians have retired and my care team rotates, I am able to progress and learn more thanks to large language models and search tools like Perplexity. I’m confident I will find a way to get back to remission quickly with little disruption.
Nothing provides me as much motivation to work as disease. I see how I and other patients like me suffer and I double down.
The progress we’ve made on autoimmune conditions in the wake of Covid and the rapid progression of protein discoveries as more AI tooling comes online. A chaotic world with a chaotic body drives my investing. We can do better as I see so much progress.
