Re: Re: Re: Please welcome a new member fred ondrajka!

Over the years I have asked my rheumatologist about damaging muscles through over doing it. His reply has always been along the lines of "I don't know." Not exactly what I wanted to hear. In his defense I know from experience you can never tell till it is to late. There are varying degrees of vasculitis associated with DM. I seem to have more vascular problems than is common and consequently have slower but shurer muscle death through lack of oxygen (ischemia). If you think you fit this rather poor description then I would discuss work and ischemia with your doctor. Also I have a feeling that prednisone and vicoden can cover up a lot of sin in this area.

Keeping busy is one of my coping mechanisms. It allows me to "not really notice how lousy I feel." If I was on disability then I would have all the time in the world to think about how much I ached, etc. Not a pretty thought. I did apply for disability a few weeks ago. I have a year to go before I can collect social security and I look at the disability as a way of testing my financial planning. If I can come close to meeting the financial requirements of disability then it will work for social security. In other works, I am trying to convince social security that my income is all unearned...rents, investments, and the like. At times I feel like the rich man trying to get into heaven. Back to your problem....If you think about disability then start saving your dollars....you will need them to get through the six months to two years it takes them to make up their minds. Also you have to be on disability for two years before medicare is offered. SSDI (no money at all) does have medicare from the get go, though. Another way of putting it is: when first diagnosed my drug bill (co-Pays) ran around $80 a month. It is around eight years later and my drug co-pays for 2007 were $1989.31

Financial planning is a good thing

Greg
fat and happy by choice and prednisone