I am an 82 year old retired teacher who spent most of my life in northern Labrador when I started teaching Inuit children mostly at Nain. I was in the U S Army for three years, spent mostly at the Arctic Test Center in Alaska doing research on frostbite and chilblain. I believe my situation started from skiing and snowshoeing a lot when I was younger and frostbiting my feet many times when I didn't head home soon enough.
Over the years I had arthritis in different parts of my body after falling when jogging in the rain and slipping on grass and hitting my elbow on a rock. I fell later at my cabin and had a concussion that was followed by all symptoms of parkinsonism that lasted for around 5 months , slowly recovering.

I think my present condition started around two years ago with neuropathic ulcers on my feet, mainly toes. The ulcers have flared up with bleeding periodically. I wore oversized shoes, and lastly boots four sizes too large, wearing them with thick wool socks. They aren't too wide, and give my toes free rein. This has helped a lot to reduce the neuropathy. If ulcers break open, I clean them with rubbing alcohol and put a mild antibiotic and band aid on them for no more than three days. Every morning I rub my toes with Jojoba oil a pen-friend sent me and the rest of my feet with Vaseline Intensive Care. I did go once to the emergency at the hospital here . The doctors prescribed a strong acid antibiotic that caused the skin to peel off my feet, so I stopped using it. I told them that I thought the problem was from frostbiting my feet. Later I saw on line that my feet were identical to a photo of neuropathic ulcers on the feet of someone with diabetes. I went to the pharmacy where I now live in central Labrador and was given a blood sugar testing kit, thinking I might be diabetic and not damaged by frostbite. My blood sugar level was shown to be normal.
I have symptoms of R A. My eyes are causing me increasing problems. I have struggled with events in my life resulting in depression and anxiety. These seem to follow flares with the R A.
This psychologist with the Geriatric Outreach Program in Ottawa, when I went down there to help my son, wanted me to go on drugs for depression and anxiety, but I didn't want to do that. I think the mind is the best way to deal with issues with the mind. I later read certain drugs for mental issues can interfere with drugs for R A.

I have lived here for over three years in a shed on one of my son's land. I am happy as the storage shed I live in has a wood stove, and I feel like I am in the cabin we built up north. I went out to check to see if some ravens that I have been feeding came behind my place to eat. I slipped on the icy snow. I hit my back on a wooden support for a lean-to covered with a tarp. This resulted not just in a sore back but later with pain in my arms and shoulders, legs, places I didn't even bump. I think this is an aspect of R A, as it goes where anything is not strong and makes more trouble, as with my eyes. I am getting very sensitive to bright light. My daughter sent me good clip-on sunglasses. I think before that a lot of issues were taken on by the family as a whole, even the extended family. This seems to have been eroded by the decline of the family farm. The nuclear family resulted in the scattering of family members. Still friends can be a true family.

I find that I get tired very easily now. Before I never fell asleep except at night. Another issue is the dysgeusia. This seems to follow with erratic flares with RA. Food that can taste alright can the next day taste rotten, and vice versa. Two foods that taste alright by themselves can taste rotten together, and the next day taste all right. Favorite comfort foods can be just the opposite with no warning. It seems no place in the body can't be affected by issues in the autoimmune system. My schools teaching or substituting for 46 years has made me very patient. I am now actually more at home with children than adults, although I rarely see any. I haven't seen my grandchildren for three years. The R A has taken me to a totally different level. The depression seems settled on going back years and years, even to my childhood, remembering every detail,, where I should have stood up for myself, but didn't. Now the people I should have stood up to are gone. I think this has been a factor in my R A experience. When people force you into a situation where you can't be yourself, it seems something has to happen and the autoimmune system is just waiting to "open the door" to what really were unaddressed issues. Then neuropathy and R A are let loose. I still don't regret what I have done, but loyalty and perseverance have very dark shadows. It doesn't seem forgiveness for others, or even oneself can change things. We can't change the past. We do need to find healthy way to lives on into the future. Wanting to die is not a solution, as it goes on to be falling out of the frying pan and into the fire.
I have feeders for the birds and squirrels. The little chickadees eat out of my hands. They always give me comfort. There are all different forms of medicine. We have to make an effort to find them.