On this week’s episode on Take a Pain Check, Jacqueline and Alexa Child come on the podcast to talk about their own personal experience of living with a chronic illness and being a sister of someone who has a chronic illness, respectively. Jacqueline starts off by discussing her diagnosis journey with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and other chronic illnesses. She talks about bad joint and muscle pain, having a butterfly rash, experiencing sensitivity to the sun, and dealing with GI symptoms that led her to seek help from a medical professional. On the other hand, Alexa discusses how she was 3000 miles away for law school, and she started off not really understanding what Jacqueline was dealing with. But once she truly learned more about it, it changed her as a person and gave her a unique perspective. Growing up in Telluride, a ski resort, there were no hospitals nearby and no specialist nearby so Jacqueline discusses her access to care barriers. Alexa and Jacqueline discuss their lives’ living together and how they became more mature than others around them as they had different lived experiences. Jacqueline talks about the difficulties being honest with Alexa about her symptoms as it’s hard a challenge to ask for help. Moreover, Jacqueline talks about her heart surgery after being born with a congenital heart defect at age 25. They end off the episode by talking about Dateability, a dating app for the chronically ill and disabled. Dateability was made based on the lived experiences of Jacqueline’s dating life and constant rejections. They talk about how the app works, their future goals for the app and how they hope to connect this ever growing community.

Dateability: https://info.dateabilityapp.com/  

Jacqueline and Alexa's socials:  @dateabilityapp @jacquelineechild @alexabchild  Check out our socials:  Website: https://www.takeapaincheck.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/takeapainch...  Twitter: https://twitter.com/takeapaincheck

On this week’s episode, Chris Pudlak talks about his journey with Ankylosing Spondylitis. Diagnosed at age 36, Chris struggled to lift up his kids or even play with them because of his arthritis pain. Since day one, he started journaling in which he intertwined his engineering skills to track his symptoms. He discusses lifestyle changes he implemented and how he tracked his symptoms. Not only that, Natasha and Chris discuss workplace accommodations such as a height adjusting desks and a different type of handshake. Chris also gives tips on how to cycle and run with ergonomic equipment. He talks about the impact of physiotherapy on his arthritis. Lastly, Chris talks abut his book ” Achieving Wellness Through Arthritis” and his involvement in Arthritis Research Canada.

Check our Chris' Socials:  Twitter and Facebook: @ChrisPudlak   

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Growing Pains, Copyright, 2018, Alessia Cara   

Alli Buchanan joins host, Natasha, on this week’s episode on Take a Pain Check to discuss her diagnosis with Psoriatic Arthritis (PsA). Alli’s starts by talking about her diagnosis journey and how it took her 10 years to get diagnosed. Physicians were aware of Alli’s family history with PsA but did not take that into account when her symptoms progressed. Because of Alli’s mom’s experience with PsA, Alli discusses how her mom was her biggest advocate as she spent a lot of time reliving her own journey. The conversation dives into the importance of talking about arthritis and its lack of representation in the science curriculum. Not only that, Alli talks about the medications she went on and how this led her to develop Toxic Shock Syndrome. She discusses that a medication that may work today, but it may not work tomorrow. She talks about her accommodations, such as having transportation and picking her university courses before other people. Additionally, Alli mentions how she balances her social life, academics and arthritis while going to college and how her friends have been able to support her. Finally, they end off the episode by talking about Alli’s arthritis Instagram page and a recent quiz she made to see how much her friends knew about her arthritis.

Quiz on Alli's friends: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CljWiTljOeV/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=   

Check our Alli's Socials:  Instagram: @alli.arthritis   

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Growing Pains, Copyright, 2018, Alessia Cara 

It started off in the hospital when Juanita told her friend she would be back to school in two days. Soon, those two days turned into months of isolation, treatments, etc. On this week’s episode, Juanita Garcia comes on to share her story with Thrombotic Thrombocytopenic Purpura (TTP) and Lupus at ages 13 and 20, respectively. Being born and brought up in Columbia, Juanita shared her health care journey while going through the Canadian vs Columbia’s system. She discusses the difference in wait times, getting blood results, and overall patient care. At the age of 13, Juanita was isolated for months from her family and peers due to her weak immune system. Her parents were also told that she wouldn’t make it when she could not get to the hospital quickly. Despite all of this, Juanita continued to be resilient. Once she found  medications that worked, things got better. Natasha and Juanita discuss the different types of patients that exists, both of them being ones that actively want to learn more about their disease. Not only that, Juanita comes to a point in her life where she had to learn to accept her disease as her new reality. Juanita shares her change in mindset and how she had to turn her disease into her friend. Lastly, Juanita shares how her journey allowed her to really get involved in her passion — research and health. She ends off the podcast episode by talking about her patient partner work with the SPOR Evidence Alliance group and the COVID END team.

Take a Pain Check's Merchandise Design Fundraiser Event: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/take-a-p...   

Check out Juanita's Socials:  @juanitagarciarecio @_me_the_hero   

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Growing Pains, Copyright, 2018, Alessia Cara   

Dr. Molly Dushnicky brings her JIA and physician perspective to this week’s episode on Take a Pain Check. In this episode, Dr. Molly discusses the story of her JIA diagnosis at the age of two with approximately 45+ impacted joints. She faced barriers of access to care in her hometown Thunder Bay in Northern Ontario as there was no pediatric rheumatologist then and even now. She talks about how she had to be flown down to The Hospital of SickKids in Toronto and CHEO in Ottawa to be treated. Dr. Molly is a fighter who did not let the disease stop her from being active. She is passionate about soccer, curling and rock climbing and learned different strategies to overcome her disability. Dr. Molly discusses her advocacy through the challenges as well as accommodations at each stage of her life with her diseases from elementary to high school, and from university to medical school. She also provides insight to her residency and fellowship programs. Lastly, Dr. Molly shares her path to her career in pediatric rheumatology and how her passion drew her to what she loves to do today.   

Take a Pain Check's Merchandise Design Fundraiser Event: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/take-a-p...  

Check out Dr. Molly Dushnicky's socials: Twitter: @MDushnicky  

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Growing Pains, Copyright, 2018, Alessia Cara  

This week’s episode features Dr. Natasha Gakhal (Adult Rheumatologist) and Dr. Evelyn Rozenblyum (Pediatric Rheumatologist), who come on the podcast to discuss their collaborative transition clinic in Toronto, Canada. They begin the episode by discussing where their interest in rheumatology came from and what drew them to focus on adult medicine vs pediatric medicine. They discuss how they met each other and what really led them to make this clinic including year long discussions at the table, challenges along the way and more. 

Will parents be allowed in the appointment? What happens when I turn 25? Why am I now getting input from 3 different health professionals? These are all questions answered in the episode!  

Additionally, they discuss the benefits of going to a transition clinic, such as the environment, other people around your age, and the multidisciplinary care. They stress the importance that it is more than just physical health while emphasizing on mental, reproductive health and more. Not only that, they discuss the type of care patients can expect, the resources that the clinic provides for youth and young adults, and the common challenges that patients face. Finally, they end off the episode discussing where they see the future of the clinic going and feedback they plan on implementing.  

Sign up for our December Joint Chat Rheum Session on Sunday, December 18th at 2pm EST/11am PST: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUvcemuqj4tG9bv5GacH2ETnmLJ0Yjxcha4    

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Growing Pains, Copyright, 2018, Alessia Cara  

This week’s episode features Naomi Abrahams, a PhD student at the University of Ottawa, who lives with Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis. The episode starts off by Naomi talking about how life felt like when being misdiagnosed for 3 years. She brings Natasha along her journey to when her symptoms started with joint swelling and pain in her hips that then moved to her elbows. Eventually, she wasn’t able to brush her teeth or eat food without pain. Her world changed and she had frequent visits to the dentist and had tons of MRIs. This led her to finally figure out her personal medication and treatment journey. Moreover, Naomi explains how she never experienced pediatric care but was experiencing symptoms when she was 15. On her 18th birthday, she was given her new diagnosis in which she felt as though she was “thrown into the adult world”. Additionally, Natasha and Naomi both discuss the pros and cons of having a rheumatoid factor negative vs positive one. They also discuss the similarities they had in terms of medications they had been on (DMARDS and biologics). Following that, they continue the conversation by talking about their own physiotherapy pathway, specifically what it’s like to do physiotherapy in a flare up and the financial aspects of getting billed through insurance. They discuss the MRI vs infusion fatigue, moving out to university with arthritis, and hair loss/growth with medications. Then, they get into the fun stuff like how Naomi told her boyfriend that she had arthritis and how he now supports her. Natasha and Naomi discuss how they met each other specifically through the Choice Research Lab, patient engagement in research and how important patient partners are. Last but not least, they end off the episode discussing their experience together at the CBC Ottawa Radio station, filming the CBC documentary and more!  

CBC documentary and article: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/juvenile-idiopathic-arthritis-podcast-creator-network-cbc-1.6614184CBC radio segment: https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-100-ottawa-morning/clip/15943512-juvenile-idiopathic-arthritis 

Check out Naomi's socials:  Instagram: @naomiabrahams  

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Growing Pains, Copyright, 2018, Alessia Cara  

In this week’s episode, Sarah Shaw becomes the host and discusses the hot topic: workplace and arthritis with guests — Michael Kuluva, Annette McKinnon and Natasha Trehan (host of TAPC). They discuss working with a rheumatic diseases at various stages of life and address the challenges in keeping employment. Unemployment and underemployment lie at the core of poverty and the financial security of people with rheumatic disease. Income has long been recognized as a social determinant of health with significant implications on the quality of life, health status, and access to health care benefits. Join the four individuals as they dive deep into their journeys, passions and hurdles.

This episode was created from the World Arthritis Day Twitter Space event held on Oct 12th, 2022.

In this week’s episode, Christina Hepner talks about her symptoms that started when she was 19 in her sophomore year. Christina relates that she tried to hide her pain in university just to live a normal college life and used humour to cope with it for 1 whole year. However, after she returned from her summer break, she no longer could hide her disease from her friends who spoke about how much fun they had in the summer. Christina started bawling her eyes out and told her friends that she spent her time in so much pain and disclosed her arthritis diagnosis. She was lucky to have a great support system which helped her mental health. Christina discusses how her arthritis made her feel like she wasn’t herself most of the time. She gained weight, had knee surgery and dealt with depression. She mentions how she worked through those hurdles with physiotherapy, changing her mindset and implementing lifestyle changes such as weightlifting and eliminating certain inflammatory foods that she researched. Finally, the episode ends with Christina talking about her job in a non-profit organization for the visually impaired as a digital marketer and her current disease status being in remission.

Check out Christina's socials:  https://www.facebook.com/ChristinaHepnerMedia https://www.instagram.com/christina_hepner/ https://twitter.com/ChristinaHepner 

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Growing Pains, Copyright, 2018, Alessia Cara

As a baby, she started off crawling then walking. After, she reverted back into crawling. On this week's episode, we invite Alexa Sutherland, an actress and writer from Los Angeles. She talks about her 4 chronic condition, including Ankylosing Spondylitis, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Fibromyalgia and Graves Disease. She starts off the episode by explaining the joints impacted for each condition and how she differentiates the pain for each of them. Alexa describes the struggles she endured at each point in her life with every added diagnosis, specifically the social and emotional aspects. In particular, she talks about the switch to home schooling due to the inability of her school faculty to accommodate. Ultimately, she decided to become her own boss and thrive in an environment that was meant for her. As the conversation continues, Alexa shares her experience with online college and discusses how online school helped her further explore her passions. She dives into her experiences with injection days and how the auto injector was her ultimate life saver to becoming more confident in giving herself her injections. Additionally, Natasha asks Alexa about dating while living with a chronic illness which led to them talking about insecurities relating to being “too difficult” to be with. Lastly, they discuss Alexa’s acting gigs, specifically Deadly Cheer Moms and navigating accommodations.

Check out Alexa's socials:  https://twitter.com/glowlexa https://www.instagram.com/glowlexa 

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Growing Pains, Copyright, 2018, Alessia Cara