Once the medication took effect, Ingram was able to trade food delivery apps for recipes again. Actions she once did regularly became major markers of progress. “I was able to start chopping up vegetables again,” Ingram recalls. “That was exciting—to be able to grip the knife and repetitively chop up and down.”
It wasn’t just the familiar flavors and motions that Ingram was happy to get back. “When I was at my lowest on my sickest days, and I wasn’t able to cook for myself, it felt like a loss of independence,” she says. Regaining the ability to do something as seemingly simple as lift up a pot or stir soup has made her feel more in control.
Ingram still deals with joint pain and stiffness sometimes, but now she can just rest for an afternoon and feel better. Before her treatment, Ingram wouldn’t be able to move for days when the pain became unbearable. “I wouldn’t say that you always get your whole life back to the way it was,” she says. However, she adds that treatment “definitely improves the quality of your day-to-day life.”
3. “I’m training for my first bodybuilding contest.”
Lauren Scholl, 33, views exercise as her me time. Long-distance running and dancing used to be her favorite ways to unwind and zone out. In fact, she was once a competitive dancer, but that career came to a halt when she developed psoriatic arthritis around five years ago.
“I’ve been through about six or seven different drugs that unfortunately did not work for me,” Scholl tells SELF. She says joining CreakyJoints, an organization for people with arthritis and rheumatic disease, gave her a lot of support during the process. “Knowing that you’re not alone and you’re not the only one going through this made a huge impact on my life,” she says.
Her sons, now five and eight years old, were also very young at the time of her diagnosis. Scholl says changing their diapers, preparing their bottles, and generally just trying to keep up with their energy was physically overwhelming with her joint pain. She remembers waking up dreading the physical toll it took on her body.
Eventually, though, Scholl found a medication that worked. She receives a biologic infusion once a month. It makes her mood a bit low for about 48 hours, but she says that side effect is worth it: “I get almost a full month of feeling like myself.”
Being able to run around and go to the park with her sons without having to grit her teeth through the pain has been life-changing. “My symptoms have curbed enough that I’m able to enjoy things like playing with my kids now that they’re older,” she says.
Now, as a personal trainer, being able to work out is the second-best change in her life. “I feel like I can give so much more to my clients,” she says. Scholl also started bodybuilding and structured her routine so she isn’t always strengthening the same muscles. “Instead of running every single day, which is constant training on your feet, this has allowed me to give my biggest problem areas, like my knees and my feet, enough time to recover and not trigger inflammation,” she explains.
Being able to see her own progress is a big mental boost—and she’s set to compete in her first bikini competition in April 2022. Her sons are impressed too. “I’ve got my five-year-old practicing his deadlift with a broomstick, and my eight-year-old can be found flexing around the house!” Scholl says. “They think it’s pretty cool.”
Related:
- 5 Helpful Tips for Managing Psoriatic Arthritis
- How Psoriatic Arthritis Changed My Life as a Runner—And a Black Woman
- How to Manage Psoriatic Arthritis and Mental Health