I went to see my rheumatologist on Thursday while I was in the middle of one my worst RA/Fibromyalgia flares I've had yet.  She decided to try me on prednisone long-term in conjunction with the embrel and hydroxychloroquine I already take.  I started it Friday morning and by the time I took the second dose Saturday my swelling and pain had already started to go down.  By this morning my hands felt almost normal.  They still tremble, but they are so much more functional and the pain has reduced tremendously.  I haven't seen my fingers this small in a few years.

She's started me on 10 mg for two weeks and then I can move up to 20 mg.  I will be seeing her again on the 23rd and we will go from there.  I really hope this is the answer.  I feel so much better in my body right now, it's like it isn't even mine.  The flare is definitely over.

As for making changes to my diet, I have stuck to portion sizes for the last 3 days and I am off the caffeine again.  I have been making sure that I drink 3 of my waterbottles a day.  My waterbottle holds 32 ounces.  I would like to get to 4 of them a day now that water is the only liquid I am drinking.

Today I am making a new step of controlling my high carbs to one meal a day, and then from there I will work towards only have 60 grams of high carbs a day.  Right now my plan is one fruit serving and one higher glycemic carb vegetable serving with my protein and low glycemic carb vegetables at dinner.  Tonight's plan is chicken sausage with bell peppers and onions and some fresh pineapple.  The onions and pineapple being higher glycemic and the peppers being lower.  Breakfast was 2 eggs and half a cucumber and lunch was thinly sliced leftover pork (4 oz) over a bed of lettuce.

I feel a lot better now that I am eating better again, too.  Caffeine really drags me down and makes me retain a lot of water and I can always feel the difference between being on it and being off of it.  I also feel the difference when I eat too many carbs or too many grain based carbs.  I will be going back to eating gluten free 100% of the time, too.  I won't be eating any gluten free bread for at least a week, though.  Just fruits, vegetables, and protein until things are firmly under control.

It is weird paying so much attention to portion sizes.  I don't think I really realized before just how skewed my perception was of portion sizes.  Now that I am measuring and weighing my food, it shows how off I was.  I am trying to do a 1600 calorie diet and being more careful is helpful to that.  I don't want to do anything more drastic than that.  I don't need superfast weight loss, just weight loss.

I am using my fitbit app to track both food and water.  Not really worrying about steps at the moment, but maybe in a week or so I can be more mindful of those as well.  Incremental changes are more important to me than trying to do everything at once and then failing.