Whether it’s waging war on women’s civil liberties, engaging in an aggressive, dangerous quest to repeal health care reform, or stripping away the safety net, radical Republicans will do it.

Can you imagine if they had total control of Congress? It would be a nightmare.

The GOP needs to win just four of the 23 seats we’re defending to take control of the Senate. Four seats constitute our last line of defense against a Congress completely controlled by Tea Party Republicans. And polling shows more than four are within the margin of error.

If the DSCC doesn’t meet their end-of-quarter goal and raise $1 million by the crucial March 31 FEC deadline, we may not have the resources we need to beat back the Republicans.

The Republicans are calling on their big guns, like the Koch Brothers and Karl Rove’s special interest groups, but we’ve got the grassroots. We get 95% of our donations from grassroots supporters.

If we don’t stand up in the Senate, it won’t matter who wins the White House. You’ve seen how destructive Republicans in the House have been; a Republican-controlled Senate would do damage to our country that would require decades to undo.

They want to do away with contraception coverage and basic women’s health services. They want to repeal health care reform, taking us back to when millions more were uninsured and providers could drop you when your need was greatest. They want to cut funding for vital programs like Head Start and the Clean Air Act.

And the safety net? It gets in the way of tax breaks for their wealthy donors.

Republicans know they lose on these issues among everyday people. It’s why they’re going state-to-state and passing restrictive voter ID laws; it’s why they’re pumping loads of special interest money into these races.

Frank Lautenberg

Scott

Psoriasis is miserable… there’s no question about it. But beyond dealing with those outbreaks of crusty, red patches on the body, nearly one in four psoriasis sufferers also has another potentially dangerous condition to worry about — and it’s one that isn’t being diagnosed promptly. It’s a form of arthritis that specifically affects psoriasis suffers that is called (logically) psoriatic arthritis (PSA).

Concerned about why either patients or doctors (or both) aren’t noticing this serious condition — which can lead to joint degeneration and even disability if left untreated — I called Bruce Bebo, Jr., PhD, director of research and medical programs at the National Psoriasis Foundation in Portland, Oregon, because he recently administered a national survey on the topic that uncovered the shocking stat above.

CONNECTING THE DOTS

Researchers contacted 477 men and women with an average age of 59. About 58% of them had been diagnosed with psoriasis only… 2% had been diagnosed with PSA only… and 40% had been diagnosed with both conditions. The researchers discovered…

Of the psoriasis-only respondents, 22% reported having significant symptoms of PSA (more on those later), even though they had not been diagnosed with PSA.

Of the respondents who knew that they had both psoriasis and PSA, 15% weren’t diagnosed with PSA until one to two years after their symptoms had started, and for 29%, it took two or more years to get a diagnosis.

Of the PSA-only group, none of them had been diagnosed with psoriasis, but researchers theorize that all of them will develop psoriasis at some point later in life, since it’s impossible to have PSA without psoriasis. (Sometimes joint problems appear first.)

What are the telltale signs of PSA? The symptoms aren’t much different from those of rheumatoid arthritis and include pain and stiffness in one or more joints throughout the body… joints that are red or warm… pain in the feet, ankles and lower back… depressions in the nail surface or nails that separate from the nail bed… and, most especially, sausagelike swelling in one or more fingers or toes.

Symptoms can be so debilitating that they affect a patient’s ability to work and do active things, like get in and out of a car. So why aren’t these symptoms being promptly diagnosed?

One main problem, Dr. Bebo said, is that even though the symptoms seem impossible to miss, patients may not realize that they have a form of arthritis. They may just chalk up the symptoms to “getting older,” so they don’t tell their primary care physicians or their dermatologists about them.

“Patients need to speak up, so one of their doctors can refer them to a rheumatologist, the type of doctor that can diagnose and treat PSA,” said Dr. Bebo.

On the other side of the equation, all dermatologists (and even primary care physicians) need to be more informed about complications of psoriasis, like PSA, and should be regularly asking psoriasis patients questions about joint pain, said Dr. Bebo.

WHAT PEOPLE WITH PSORIASIS NEED TO KNOW

PSA is a form of inflammatory arthritis, so, like psoriasis, it’s considered an autoimmune disorder. It’s not like osteoarthritis, the most common form of arthritis, which is caused by wear-and-tear on the body –

PSA occurs when your immune system, for unknown reasons, attacks your body.
PSA also runs in families.

The symptoms of and treatments for PSA are similar to those for rheumatoid arthritis, said Dr. Bebo, but they’re not identical, so it’s critical for a rheumatologist to tell you exactly which kind you have.

Researchers aren’t sure why some people with psoriasis develop PSA and others don’t. “More research should and will be done on the topic,” said Dr. Bebo.

But here’s what we do know: PSA usually strikes between ages 30 and 50, usually about 10 years after psoriasis is diagnosed, Dr. Bebo told me. Both conditions are episodic, meaning that they flare up and recede over the course of a lifetime.

Flare-ups are commonly responses to such triggers as infection (bacterial or viral) or trauma, but, interestingly, they don’t tend to flare up at the same times — in other words, the severity of your psoriasis at any given time is not usually related to the severity of your PSA, said Dr. Bebo.

Sorry if this has been a downer thus far, but I can offer hope for a happy ending for people who have or are worried that they might develop this unpleasant condition.

“There is no cure, but there are treatments that can help control symptoms, such as over-the-counter and prescription medications, and there are even more treatments in the pipeline,” Dr. Bebo told me.

Natural treatments can help, too, said Dr. Bebo, such as maintaining a healthy weight (since that puts less stress on joints), exercising regularly (to keep joints flexible), using cold or hot packs for 15 minutes at a time to numb pain in affected joints and changing the way you perform everyday tasks (such as carrying heavy pots with both hands instead of one and pushing doors open with your full body instead of just one arm).

Some PSA patients may find relief by taking a variety of natural supplements and/or by making dietary changes — ask your doctor if making a change like this would be right for you.

The bottom line: Have psoriasis? Look out for PSA symptoms. If you think you may have PSA, speak up and tell your primary care doctor or your dermatologist — since he/she may not bring it up — and then he/she can refer you to a rheumatologist, who can give you the appropriate diagnostic tests.

Source(s):

Bruce F. Bebo, Jr., PhD, director of research and medical programs, National Psoriasis Foundation, Portland, Oregon.

I will leave it to the blog to determine who is the “dumb ass.” In your defense I will say that I do not consider you dumb just misguided on this issue.

We all make mistakes, I have and will continue to do so. I hope I will be treated with as respectfully as I do others when it happens again.

We both know that you are famous on this blog for “seeing both sides of the male/female issues.” It makes for interesting reading. I know I often wait for you to “weight” in on a topic before I comment.

That way I get both sides of an argument. I am quite certain many others do the same. It is just that I felt you waded into a province you shouldn’t have. It is merely an opinion, not worthy of so much vitriol.

Alycedale