Health and medical information

As you put the puzzle pieces of your life together, you will adjust to your new situation, adapt to changing circumstances, and reconcile with reality. Adjustment is a balancing of all areas of life so as to bring about a more satisfactory situation. It includes the element of adaptation, the process of making modifications to deal with changing circumstances. Reconciliation is the recognition of the underlying consistency or congruity in your life, even when it has been disrupted by spinal cord injury.

However, before you can adjust, adapt, and reconcile to life with spinal cord injury, you need to work through old, unresolved issues. In this way you can enjoy the present and better plan for the future. The resolution of issues and needs left festering from the past is a priority before moving on. It’s like taking a car in for periodic tune-ups to correct what’s gone wrong so that it will run smoothly in the future. Your looking-back-in-order-to-move-ahead assessment will include the following personal checkpoints:

1.   Healing old wounds

2.   Checking out coping patterns

3.   Refraining personal appearance

4.   “Owning” your spinal cord injury

5.   Integrating disability into your life

6.   Relating to others.

In each area, you need to look at the challenges ahead and the strengths you have to meet them.

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One of the suspected causes of rheumatoid arthritis is infection by microorganisms such as bacteria, fungi, protozoa, or viruses. Studies in the early 1990s suggested that treatment with antibiotics known as tetracyclines might be beneficial for rheumatoid arthritis sufferers, and a number of clinical studies have confirmed this.

Minocycline, a member of this drug family, is the most commonly used for rheumatoid arthritis. This treatment has had a hard time gaining mainstream acceptance among doctors because the infection theory of rheumatoid arthritis is itself not widely accepted, and the supposed infectious organism has not been discovered.

There is still debate about exactly how the drug works, or what percentage of people with rheumatoid arthritis it works for. Clinical studies have found that antibiotic treatment decreases both inflammation and the amount of rheumatoid factor in the blood. Proponents of the microorganism theory believe that it works as an antibiotic. However, there are other possible mechanisms as well. For example, minocycline appears to directly protect joints against damaging enzymes. Its possible that the fact that minocycline is an antibiotic too is a coincidence.

Side effects commonly seen with minocycline include stomach upset and dizziness – rather tame reactions, compared to some of the rheumatoid arthritis drugs’ side effects.

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