Dealing with pain

BY WENDY SMITH



Although arthritis is poised to become the leading cause of disability in Canada – right now there are 30,000 sufferers on the West Island – the disease is routinely pushed to the bottom of the heap of medical priorities, according to Arthritis Montreal.

“Arthritis takes a backseat to cancer, diabetes and cardiology in the West Island,� said Paulette Zielinski, president of Arthritis Montreal.

The advocacy group held its annual public symposium last week.

The event saw medical professionals and sufferers flock to the Dorval community centre to trade tips and listen to patient activist Louise Bergeron recount her personal struggle with systemic lupus, a potentially lethal autoimmune disorder known as “the disease with 1,000 faces� because it can cripple all the body’s major systems.

Arthritis is one of those faces, and it’s one Bergeron is all too familiar with. On a good day, she is able to cheer her son on at one of his hockey games and help her daughter with homework. On a bad day, she feels like she’s been “hit by a Mack truck.�

Because the Lakeshore General Hospital has no rheumatology department, the Ile Perrot resident has to travel downtown to meet with specialists.

“Anybody who goes to the Lakeshore is not treated properly for lupus,� Zielinski said, adding the lack of specialized treatment on the West Island for lupus patients is something she’d like to change, though she doesn’t see it happening anytime soon.

Besides lack of services, arthritis sufferers – particularly women, who are at greater risk for autoimmune forms of arthritis – have trouble persuading doctors to take their pain seriously, Zielinski said. “We get an awful lot of calls from women who say their doctors think that they’re neurotics.�

Zielinski was put on antidepressants for two years when she complained to her doctor that she “hurt everywhere, including my hair. I was sore from head to toe.� She was eventually diagnosed with fibromyalgia, a form of arthritis that affects muscles, tendons and ligaments.

For three years, Bergeron’s doctors could find nothing wrong with her. When she began feeling achy, tired and feverish after her son was born, her doctors told her she was suffering from the flu, or from post-natal fatigue. A frustrated Bergeron knew it had to be something more. “I saw my friends, they had babies, and they weren’t having flu-like symptoms all the time,� she said.

Then her blood pressure surged to 180 over 130, putting her at risk for a stroke. A cocktail of four different medications brought it back down. Thinking the worst was over, she returned to work – only to be waylaid a week later with a fever and swollen joints. It wasn’t until she couldn’t get out of bed that she was formally

diagnosed.

For Bergeron, becoming an activist meant taking back the reins of her life from the disease. She knows the future is uncertain. If her kidneys fail, she’ll have to undergo chemotherapy to suppress her immune system. For now, she’s taking things one day at a time.

“Most people get up in the morning and they know, ‘I’m going to be able to do this or that,’ but someone with lupus can never know because it changes from minute to minute,� she said.

For more information about Arthritis Montreal, call 514-631-3288.