My GP has agreed with me - methotrexate isn't working. In fact, it's made my life a lot worse through the headaches. Movement and sunlight leave me in whimpering heaps, worse after taking each weekly dose.

Having moved overseas, now twice, I get asked a lot of questions from my language students, mostly about why I decided to move, how I organized the move, what things I miss from my home town.

This is my true story of how a bookworm and budding fiction writer stopped reading and was shocked at how it affected and stunted her writing.

Being understandable is a good thing, even if your academic supervisors criticise you for it.

In recent months (or years), it has felt like the Evernote interface and apps have stalled. I've documented the switch to remind myself how painful software developers make change.

I had a lot of non-working downtime in which to recover from the operation and seek out answers for other problems that flared. Which meant I was able to finish many a project last year.

There are heaps of scary stories about methotrexate out there - massive nausea problems, hair falling out, bad ulcers, pneumonia and bronchitis, and big liver problems (especially if you drink).

If you are allergic to salicylic acid (aspirin), you won't be able to take sulfasalazine, a common anti-inflammatory medication for spondyloarthropathies.

A new lengthy investigation was triggered by an injury from a bad wrist position my wrist during my hysterectomy, last February, resulted in a new diagnosis of an autoimmune disease - undifferentiated sponyloarthritis.

As more research is done on specific diseases, our understanding of them changes. Fibromyalgia is a very common illness. Almost two people in a hundred will develop it at some stage in their life. It is typically diagnosed after ruling out a host of other illnesses.