Hello! My name is David Trigos. I am 39 years old and I live in Oviedo, in the North of Spain.
I was diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis in 2014, when I was 35 years old. So I have suffered psoriasis, the skin condition, since 1998. The first symptoms of my psoriatic arthritis appeared when I was 27 years old, with swelling and pain in my tendons, and small pits that appeared in my nails.
I continued with my regular life, feeling pain, feeling swelling, but I continued doing all the things that I loved. I continued with my job, I continued with my hobbies until 2013, when I suffered a problem at the top of mountain.
I love to climb. When we were at the top of the mountain, we were resting for more than one hour at the top, and after that, my body felt totally blocked. That day, it was impossible for me to come down from the mountain. My friends helped me, but it was really uncomfortable for me.
After that, I talked to my dermatologist. My dermatologist redirected me to my rheumatologist. He did different tests on me and after that he told me I was a psoriatic arthritis patient. This was in March, 2014.
This moment… That moment changed my life because after that, I started to feel fear. I was afraid to climb or to hike in the mountains, or to practice any kind of sport, and I love sport. The biggest issues that I developed was with my job. Because after that moment in the mountain, every month… I suffered a different kind of adverse events in my body and it was impossible for me to develop in my job. When you have a chronic disease, you are living on a rollercoaster, up, down, up, down.
Now, I am totally controlled by my physicians. Of course my rheumatologist and my dermatologist. They continue to control my psoriasis disease and I am happy with it. I am happy because I know there are many different researchers in different fields for the psoriatic patients and I am happy with these.
For me the success of a treatment is… not to feel swelling, not to feel worse, not to feel bad days. The success is to feel close to a normal life. This is success for me in a treatment.
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