Antonia's Story

Today, for Psoriasis Awareness Week, we're focusing on Psoriatic Arthritis. Antonia shares her story of how her diagnosis finally explained the aches and pains she had experienced for years and how her art and photography has been an outlet for her.

Hi, my name is Antonia Attwood. I am a visual artist and Photographer and I live with Psoriasis and Psoriatic Arthritis.

I was originally diagnosed with Psoriasis in 2012 when my scalp started to itch, flake, and bleed, not fixed by using my usual Head & Shoulders shampoo. I went to the doctors and they confirmed I was suffering with a skin condition called Psoriasis. As a kid, I was known as the girl with allergies to everything and had very sensitive skin. Both my grandads and my cousin suffer from Psoriasis, so at this point the diagnosis wasn’t a surprise to me.

For the next 10 years, I tried every horrific-smelling, stinging, brown, petrol-scented shampoo and ointment to ease my symptoms. Nothing ever cleared it, but with shampoos, sunbeds, and self-care I managed to keep it under control. It was something I got used to. I was lucky my patches stayed on my scalp, back, chest, and feet, so I was able to hide them most of the time.

In spring 2022, ten years after my psoriasis diagnosis, I found myself struggling to pick up the kettle. Looking back, I realise I had experienced joint pain before, but I always put it down to old injuries: a broken elbow, a sprained knee, bad shoulders from my career as a photographer. When the pain spread to my hands, wrists, fingers, shoulders, knees, and elbows, I finally accepted something wasn’t right and picked up the phone to my GP.

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I was fortunate to speak to a lovely GP who took my pain seriously, more seriously than I ever had. When I described my symptoms, she reviewed my medical history and asked me about my psoriasis.

She then asked if I had ever heard of Psoriatic Arthritis, something no one in my ten years of appointments trying to fix my skin condition had ever mentioned. It turned out the pain in my joints over the years probably hadn’t been caused by injury, but by an autoimmune disease.

My first set of blood tests confirmed exactly what the GP suspected. My CRP and ESR (the markers in your blood that test for inflammation) were extremely high. I was referred straight to Rheumatology for further examination and imaging, which revealed all the inflammation in my joints.

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As mentioned, I was one of the lucky ones whose symptoms were textbook and easy to confirm with tests. The diagnosis came quickly thanks to the wonderful GP who reviewed my medical history, listened to my symptoms, and put all the pieces together like a perfectly fitting puzzle.

It has been around three years since that diagnosis, and things haven’t been easy. I have tried over six medications (DMARDs and Biologics) to bring my inflammation down to a safe level. One of them even worked for about six months before my body-built antibodies to it. For the last year, I have been on Cimzia, which has made a huge difference.

Looking back on the past few years, I have spent countless hours in hospital, had more blood taken than I can comprehend, and tried medication after medication with difficult side effects. There were months where fatigue left me sleeping 18 hours a day, and joint pain made simple movements like raising my arm or standing from a chair almost impossible. Through all of this, I have built resilience and strength I never thought I had.

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Without a doubt, this illness has changed my life, but I also cannot describe how alive I feel when my medication is working. When I am, for want of a better word, “well.” The fog lifts, the fatigue eases, the pain fades, and I feel like myself again. “Well” to a degree I didn’t even know was possible. I used to wonder, didn’t everyone feel exhausted all the time?

One of the ways I manage my illness is by creating art to process everything I’ve been through. If you’d like to see more about how my practice explores my Psoriasis and PSA, you can check out the interview I did with The Poorly Project here.

Photography credit: Cengi Sen. The Poorly Project