Stephany Writes

Categories: About Me

An Oura Ring Review

I’ve been wearing my Oura ring for four months, so I figured it was time to review it. The tl;dr is that I love my Oura ring. I barely notice it on my hand, and I really enjoy the metrics it provides me. It was a great decision for me, especially because I highly value sleep metrics and found it so clunky to sleep with my Apple Watch. This ring is so sleek that sometimes I have to check and make sure it’s still on my finger!

Why did I buy an Oura ring in the first place?

I’ve had an Apple Watch for quite a while, and I liked it a lot, but the watch always felt heavy on my wrist. (I am a delicate bird.) At some point in the day, I just wanted it off my wrist. Plus, I had to charge it for an hour or so every evening to sleep with it. That wasn’t too bad, but it could be a nuisance if I was trying to close my rings late at night.

My mom got an Oura ring earlier this year, and I loved looking at her Oura app to see her metrics. (I also liked to joke about connecting her app to my phone, just so I could see her heartbeat at all times. I am in therapy, okay?!?!) I hemmed and hawed about it, but ultimately, since I had some leftover HSA money from 2025, I decided to put it toward buying an Oura ring. I’d test it out for a few months and see how I liked it.

I was mainly curious to analyze my sleep metrics, my daily “readiness” score, and see how my stress levels fluctuate throughout the month. Plus, I figured it could be a good way to track my PsA progress and see how things like inflammation affect my overall health.

What I love about my Oura ring

There is a lot I love about my Oura ring. I find so many of the metrics useful, but especially:

  • It’s unobtrusive

I’ve already talked about how unobtrusive the Oura ring is, but I want to reiterate it here because I don’t wear jewelry. I never wear rings. I only put on earrings if I remember to, and then I take them off as soon as I get home. I’ll wear necklaces from time to time, but I get annoyed with having something around my neck. Bracelets are a no-go. So I was worried about how I would adjust to wearing a ring 24/7, and a ring that’s a bit heavier than I’m used to. The first few days were weird, but I got used to it pretty quickly. (And I don’t even wear the slimmer version that came out mere months after I purchased my ring. I’m sure that one would be even better!)

  • The sleep metrics have been so helpful

I am not sleeping well right now, so some days it’s frustrating to open my Oura app and see I slept less than 6 hours and my readiness score is in the trash. But it’s still helpful to understand what is happening to cause my terrible sleep. Sometimes, it’s because my resting heart rate never lowered throughout the night and sometimes, it’s because I didn’t wear my CPAP to bed and I had a lot of breathing disturbances. Recently, I took all my sleep data from May until now and threw it into ChatGPT to help me understand my sleep trends. It was helpful to see that a) I’m regularly getting less than 7 hours of sleep per night, b) my heart rate variability can fluctuate dramatically (and especially around my period). I also figured out that my recent dip in sleep health coincided with a recent PsA flare, so, well, there ya go! It’s going to be so helpful to have these metrics to look at long-term, especially once my PsA is more controlled.

  • I love getting my daily readiness score

Every morning, I love opening my app to see how I slept that night and how it will affect my readiness score for the day. Oura’s readiness score combines metrics like sleep, physiological signals, and activity to show how prepared your body is for the day. It doesn’t just measure what things look like today; it compares them over time. Essentially, Oura calculates my readiness score by comparing things like how much sleep I’ve gotten over the past few weeks, how consistent my sleep/wake schedule has been, and whether my activity level was lower or higher than usual. What’s even cooler is that it adjusts my activity level based on my readiness score. So, if I’ve had some bad nights of sleep and my stress levels are higher than normal, it lowers my daily step target that day. (You can choose between two types of activity goals: active calorie burn or steps. I’ve chosen steps.) Right now, my daily target is 4,500 steps, but if my readiness is particularly low, Oura will lower the target to 2,000 or 3,000 steps.

  • Cycle Insights are a fascinating discovery

One of the things I love most about my Oura ring is Cycle Insights. This stays on my homepage, so I can see exactly what day of my cycle I’m on and what phase I’m in. It also shows a fertile window for people trying to get pregnant, which is probably very helpful. (For me, it’s more helpful to see when I’m ovulating since I know I’ll be in pain, sigh.) I like being able to see how my body temperature is affected by my cycle and how close I am to starting my period (since I always have an idea of when it will begin, but Oura makes it very clear with a red warning, “Your period will start in a few days.”). And because I’m so clued into my cycle timing, I’ve noticed that at the beginning of every period (usually day 2 or 3), Oura warns me that I’m experiencing “major signs of strain.” Logically, yes, I know this because I’m in immense pain, but there is something gratifying about seeing that it’s not all in my head. Every month, my body goes through something that causes physiological stress, and my Oura ring captures it.

 

 

What I don’t love about my Oura ring

There isn’t much I don’t love about my Oura ring. The biggest drawback for me is that it doesn’t always calculate my naps. However, I think this is because my heart rate doesn’t typically lower enough for Oura to register that I’m asleep, so it’s more of a “me” thing than an Oura issue. Still, it helps to see that, even though I thought I slept deeply during a nap, Oura isn’t counting it toward my sleep metrics or readiness score because my heart rate stayed elevated.

The other thing I don’t love is their tagging system. In the app, you can tag all sorts of things so Oura can start detecting trends in your data. Some common tags are CPAP, caffeine, cramps, massage, vacation, airplane, reading before bed, alcohol, etc. You can also add custom tags. I am still figuring out the best way to use their tags, mostly because you have to add a start and end time, which I find to be strange. I just want to tag that I used my CPAP last night, not exactly when I used it! I wish there was a way to bypass the timing for some tags, but alas. It’s also a little time-consuming to add in tags every day, so I just haven’t been doing that unless I have a particularly bad night of sleep or my stress levels are higher than normal.

I also haven’t tried out the activity aspect of Oura since I’m still not cleared for high-impact activity. It works fine for my walks and short stints on the bike at the gym, and they recently added live tracking when you start a workout. So far, it seems to work much like my Apple Watch, but once I’m back to more strenuous workouts, I’ll report back!

Do I recommend the Oura ring?

Smart trackers like the Oura ring can be complicated to recommend. Ultimately, if you enjoy analyzing your own health metrics, I would recommend the ring. If you don’t love waking up after a restful night’s sleep only to learn it might not have been as restful as you thought, you may not want a tracker like this. (I personally find that fascinating because there is so much more to sleeping/restoring your body than actual sleep!)

The Oura ring does come with a yearly membership ($80), which your FSA/HSA will cover. I don’t find that price unreasonable given how robust the app and health tracking are, but YMMV.

For me, I am most interested in understanding how my body is faring physiologically. This is important as I learn to manage a chronic autoimmune condition and as I get older and enter perimenopause at some point in the next decade. I have found the ring really useful for tracking my health metrics and understanding how different things (like a PsA flare or the first days of my period) affect my body as a whole.

Do you use any sort of tracker like this?

Categories: About Me

Never Have I Ever… (vol. 4)

On Monday, I experienced something that could have made it onto a Never Have I Ever list: feeling the effects of an earthquake! There was a 6.1 magnitude earthquake in Cuba around 2pm Monday, and I felt the (very minor) effects from my little third-floor apartment in St. Petersburg! It was the weirdest experience: my lampshade started shaking on its own, and my desk chair was making weird noises like it was moving even though I was sitting still. Lila kept staring at the lamp like she expected it to fall on her head. I legit thought the floor was caving in! And then, all of a sudden, it was over, and everything was back to normal. I went about my day and didn’t think anything of it, until I was talking with my mom later, and she mentioned the earthquake and how people in Florida felt the effects. Wild!

Here are some of my actual Never Have I Ever’s…

1) Eaten at a Michelin-star restaurant – There are a few in Tampa (including one that offers tableside mozzarella and housemade pasta, mmm!) that I should go to at some point.

2) Flown in first class – My first business class experience was last year, and that was seriously luxurious! First class would be even better!

3) Eaten lobster – Maybe I’ll try it for the first time when I’m in Maine later this year?

4) Been in a snowstorm – I don’t know if I want to experience this, but maybe.

5) Been a guest on a podcast – I’ve hosted my own podcast for four years now, but I’ve never guested on a podcast!

6) Raced in anything beyond a 10K – And I never will.

7) Drank a full beer – And again, I never will. Yuck.

8) Gotten Wordle in 1 – I have faith it will happen for me someday!

9) Been on a reality TV show – My mom and I always joke about applying for The Amazing Race, and how she’d become America’s Sweetheart while I would become a villain. Essentially, I can be a real brat to my mom when I’m stressed out and usually take my anxiety out on her. There was one memorable time when we were in Ireland, and I had a big blowup on the street at her, and she took it on the chin, got us to a restaurant, and after I had gotten some food in my system, I was all, “So that was an overreaction…” (I always apologize, and I’m trying to be better! Moms are truly the saints among us.)

10) Attended an Olympic event – I would love to! I probably wouldn’t love the crowds, but it would be a cool experience.

How many “Never Have I Ever’s” have you done?

Categories: About Me

My Beige Flags

We all have our beige flags. They are not toxic traits like red flags, nor are they all that positive like green flags. They are the quirks of our personality that is probably a little annoying to other people, but not enough to be troublesome. Here are some of my beige flags:

1) I can’t fall asleep unless I’m listening to an ASMR video on YouTube.

I’ve become addicted to ASMR to help me fall asleep at night. My favorite videos are “role plays” where a creator pretends she’s working at the front desk of a hotel, in a grocery store line, or checking out books at a library. They are so soothing with the quiet voices, clicky-clacky keyboards, and crinkly sounds of bags and books being handled. I don’t have to even look at the videos; I just turn them on, place the phone on my bed, and snuggle in to listen and fall asleep.

Oh! One of my new favorite ASMR accounts is a woman who paints these gorgeous scenes on canvas. Her melodic voice and the brush strokes and all the little sounds happening as she mixes colors… heaven. She’s one of those accounts where I have a dozen videos where I’ve only watched 5-10 minutes because I fall asleep so quickly.

2) I take forever to respond to text messages.

Please don’t count on me to respond to text messages in a timely manner. I’m the friend who barely interacts on a group message because I’ll pick up my phone, see 100 texts in a group chat (half of those being reactions), and quickly scroll through to get that red notification off my app. And for 1:1 convos, I will often see the message, need a minute to think of my response, and then realize it’s been hours and my friend is still waiting on me. I will respond, but I am terrible at keeping a swift convo going through text.

3) I *have* to drink Gatorade with my pills in the morning.

Water is so gross to me in the morning. There’s something about all those nighttime germs running around inside my mouth, and even after brushing my teeth, I just cannot handle water until mid-day. For years, I’ve been taking my morning pills with purple Gatorade, which I know isn’t a great alternative (hello, sugar and acidity!), but I like to tell myself it’s better than taking my pills with soda.

However, I’ve been dealing with some hardcore heartburn lately, and I think it’s going to be time to train myself to take my pills with water. Maybe I could switch to taking them at night?! IDK.

4) I like to say things like “Don’t mind if I doo-zers!” when I find a parking space up front.

I’d kill it as a middle-aged dad. Sometimes I think those Progressive, “don’t end up like your parents” commercials were made for me.

5) I am overly affectionate with the animals around me.

The first time I saw a Reel from the most affectionate vet in the world, I felt seen. This is me around any animals I see. I want to devour them with my love. I tell them immediately that they are my very best friend and that I love them so, so much. I am awkward around children, but put a dog or a cat or, hell, a gerbil in front of me, and I become an entirely different person. I can chat with a dog so much more easily than a human, I’ll tell you that.

What are some of your beige flags?

Categories: About Me

My Journey to a Psoriatic Arthritis Diagnosis

It started with back pain.

This was near the end of September, maybe a week or two before I was set to spend a week in London. It was my thoracic vertebrae and this intense feeling that I needed to crack my back. The pain then spread to my entire upper back, so I went to urgent care, got muscle relaxers, and hoped that would be the end of it.

When my back pain still wasn’t better after coming home from London, I saw an orthopedist. X-rays were taken, spine looked fine. He ordered a prescription anti-inflammatory (celebrex), more muscle relaxers, and physical therapy.

Then, my hips started hurting. It was little things: standing up took longer, walking up and down stairs was difficult, and getting down on the floor to clean the litter boxes every night was painful. My IT band had been tight for a while now, and I was finding no relief from PT, heat therapy, and stretching.

I went to a different orthopedist (same practice, different specialty). More X-rays, no hip issues. He gave me a steroid shot in both hips because perhaps this was a simple case of hip bursitis. The steroid shot helped for a day or two, and then I was back to being in pain. He also prescribed a high dose of meloxicam as well as more physical therapy.

Still, there was no relief. My hips still hurt. My IT band was still incredibly tight. And I started noticing that I was having a lot of shoulder pain and achiness. I chalked it up to the hip pain. Maybe it was the way I was bracing myself when I sat down or stood up, and that was causing stress to my shoulders.

And then I saw the commercial.

This was mid-December. I was watching the Survivor finale with my mom, and we watched a commercial that said something to the effect of, “Do you have psoriasis? Are you experiencing joint pain? You could have psoriatic arthritis!”

I do have psoriasis (scalp psoriasis), and yes, I’ve been having joint pain for months.

Immediately, I started googling. What is psoriatic arthritis? What are the symptoms? Is this why all of these typical treatment methods that should help something like hip bursitis or tendinopathy aren’t working?

The problem was that my company had just been bought. We were in the beginning stages of this transition, and I was still waiting to find out the details of our health insurance plan. I didn’t want to schedule a rheumatology appointment using one health insurance plan, only to find out that the new health insurance wasn’t accepted at this office. And then, for some dumb reason, I thought I had to wait until I had my insurance card (or at least a digital copy) to set up the appointment, so I waited until January 2nd.

The earliest appointment was the end of January, which was a huge disappointment. I know specialists are harder to get quick appointments with, so I should be grateful it was only a few weeks of waiting. But I was just in so much pain, and I couldn’t fathom living like this for another few weeks.

Alas, I did. It was a rough start to the year. Let’s take a break from storytime to discuss all of the aches and pains I’ve been dealing with over the past few months:

  • Shoulder pain – Using my arms to brace myself when getting out of bed or from a seated position on the floor was excruciating. I also haven’t been able to lift my arms higher than parallel to the floor.
  • AC/SC joint pain – I am an expert on this joint now! The AC joint connects your collarbone to your shoulder joint, while the SC joint connects the other side of your collarbone to your sternum. This is a very common area for psoriasis arthritis pain. And surprise! These joints are crucial to almost everything we do. Sitting, standing, moving our arms, typing, turning over in bed… this pain sucks.
  • Sausage finger – My left ring finger started hurting a few weeks ago. It became swollen and difficult to bend. Even touching the finger hurt, so I started keeping a brace on that finger to protect it. Thanks to this sausage finger, I couldn’t even brush my hair with my left hand because I couldn’t grip the hairbrush! That’s lovely.
  • Elbow pain – For people without psoriatic arthritis, this is typically called golfer’s elbow or tennis elbow (because I had both!). Gripping anything with this arm caused shooting pain, and sometimes it would just ache and ache for no reason at all.
  • Hip pain – We’ve been over this. My hips have been on the struggle bus since October. I can’t sleep on my side because it puts too much pressure on my hip. I have to oh-so-slowly straighten to a standing position when I’ve been sitting because my hips get so stiff.
  • Tight IT bands – I love sitting criss-cross applesauce. I love tucking one foot under my other leg when I’m sitting. I love being able to put on socks and shoes without excruciating pain. This tight IT band has been awful.
  • Knee pain – A few weeks ago, my left knee decided to join in the fun! The interior side of my knee is tender and aching, making it hard to walk and even straighten that leg. WHY.
  • Achilles’ tenderness – This one has been going on for a while, and it’s another classic sign of PA. It’s only on my right side, but it makes walking hard and for a while, I had to go up and down stairs one at a time because putting too much pressure on that heel was no bueno.

Needless to say, it’s been a very painful and difficult few months.

Yesterday, the day I had been waiting for and counting down to arrived. It was rheumatology appointment day! Cue all the celebration emojis!

The rheumatologist spent a lot of time with me during this appointment, listening to me discuss my symptoms, doing a full examination of all my joints, and taking me through some mobility exercises to determine my range of motion. At the end of the appointment, she confirmed that I likely had psoriatic arthritis. She ordered blood tests to check for inflammatory markers, rule out rheumatoid arthritis, and establish baseline lab numbers (for things like kidney function, white/red blood cell counts, etc). She also wants me to get X-rays to determine if there are any bone or joint changes—she doesn’t think there will be, but wants to have updated X-rays to compare once I begin treatment.

And, the best news of all, she started me on prednisone! Maybe some people wouldn’t consider this happy news, but as someone who has been in chronic pain for five months and hasn’t had a good night of sleep since then… I am over the moon. The doctor wanted me to wait to start prednisone until I got my blood tests done, so what did I do? I hopped over to the Quest Diagnostics app immediately after the appointment and scheduled a blood test! I got it done within 15 minutes of finishing my rheumatology appointment because I was not going to wait to start prednisone.

I took my first dose yesterday (starting at 24mg, although my baseline will be 10mg until I’m in a treatment protocol), and as I’m typing up this post eight hours later, I’ve noticed such a difference in my body. I can stand up without pain. I reached for a plate in a cabinet with my right hand (the one with the elbow flare), and I didn’t feel shooting pain up my arm. My sausage finger is not as swollen. I was able to get down on the floor to clean out a litter box, and while it was still a little difficult (especially standing up since my AC/SC joint is still achy), it was easier than it has been in many, many months.

There’s a lot to be determined, of course. I have a follow-up with my rheumatologist in two weeks to discuss my bloodwork and X-rays, and then determine the right course of treatment. It may take some time to find the right medication/dosage, and I may have flares during that period. But right now, I feel like I have a new lease on life. I did not want to get diagnosed with a chronic autoimmune condition, but if I have to have one, then so be it. I’m glad I finally have a reason behind all of my pain and a caring doctor who is ready to help me get on the right track to feeling better.

(I’d like to give a special hat tip to Lisa, who has always been like a big sister to me and even more so now, as someone who is further along in this autoimmune arthritis journey and has been such a helpful resource. Knowing I’m not in this alone has helped more than she’ll ever know!)

Categories: About Me

Thirty-Eight

Today is my 38th birthday.

There are just two years left in my thirties. Mind-boggling. I have high hopes for my forties, but for now, I want to relish being in my late thirties.

There’s a lot that happened this year. Mainly, my physical health suffered a lot. There was really bad bloodwork in January that prompted an immediate change to my diet to stave off a Type 2 diabetes diagnosis (success, although I’m still prediabetic). On the heels of that came carpal tunnel pain that was keeping me up at night and making my life miserable. A steroid shot right in the nerve made things a lot better, although the symptoms have started to return after 6-ish months, which means surgery is probably the next step. Then came GI issues (basically, chronic diarrhea for 5 months) and a slew of tests to rule out anything serious, including a colonoscopy! And maybe the colonoscopy prep reset my GI tract? After the procedure, everything went back to normal. (And all the tests came back negative for anything serious.) I’m capping things off with back, neck, and IT band pain that has been my constant companion since September. I’ve done chiropractic adjustments, physical therapy, daily sessions with my heating pad… nothing has made it feel better. Next up: possibly an MRI and trying dry needling (<– a Nicole suggestion!)? I dearly hope this pain doesn’t follow me into 2026.

One of the lines I wrote in last year’s birthday post was: “Will I be typing up this birthday post next year from a beautiful, two-bedroom apartment? I really hope so.” Past Stephany, you are! Moving to a two-bedroom apartment has been one of my biggest dreams for so long. When I originally started living on my own in 2016, there weren’t too many apartments in my budget. I settled on a tiny one-bedroom (550 square feet!) that was under $700 per month, which was all I could afford. Once I started working from home during the pandemic, I desperately needed to upgrade to a bigger place. At first, I was working from my kitchen island because I didn’t even have a desk at home! And then I bought a tiny desk that I had to shove right next to my bed, and I really hated that my sleeping space and my work space were right next to each other. So I upgraded to a large one-bedroom apartment (718 square feet!) and used the corner of my living room as my “office.”

That apartment worked well for me, but what I really wanted was a two-bedroom apartment so I could better separate my work life and my non-work life. But finding that magical apartment was a journey. Not only did I need an apartment in my price range (ideally, under $2,000 per month) but I’d prefer one with just one bathroom because what do I need two bathrooms for? And then I found the unicorn: a two-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment under my price range and it came with two months free rent!

It’s now been a little less than a month since I officially moved in, and I am so, so happy here. I love having so much extra space that I don’t know how to fill it. I love having shelves in my kitchen that are empty. I love that Eloise can do pretty substantial zoomies every night thanks to a long hallway and a bigger living room to run around in. I love the office and being able to have a separate space for work. I love that I’m no longer on a busy street so leaving isn’t a stressful endeavor. I love the luxurious bathtub and feeling like a queen when I take a bubble bath. I love having a washer/dryer that is so quiet that sometimes I forget that I’m washing clothes. This change has been a long time coming, and I’m just so happy to get more settled in as the months progress.

I didn’t date much this year, and I’m starting to wonder why I don’t feel that desire to do so. Is it because dating so far hasn’t met any of my needs? It’s exhausting to be on the apps and to message with people only for things to fizzle out for unknown reasons. Or to go on dates that are fine, but not the kind that will lead to anything serious. And I have tried to be someone who dates casually and doesn’t make a big deal out of dating, but honestly, I’d rather be at home with my cats on a Friday night than spending time with someone I just feel “fine” about.

A few years ago, I was dating someone, and it was getting serious. One Friday night, we had plans to hang out. I was going to stay over at her place, and then we would have breakfast in the morning. And I just remember sitting in her car on the way to dinner, and this sudden restlessness came over me. “I just want to be at home,” I remember thinking. It wasn’t about her, but rather an overwhelming urge to go home. The whole evening stretched out in front of me, and I suddenly didn’t have the capacity for it. Something in me just wanted the familiarity and comfort of my own space. At the time, I chalked it up to the newness of a relationship that was blossoming into something real and that uncomfortable feeling of change. Even good change can be wildly uncomfortable.

In the end, that relationship didn’t last, and I can’t stop thinking about that feeling I had in her car. It makes me wonder if I will ever find someone I’m willing to change my life for. I’m not even talking about massive change, just small things like not having my weekends all to myself and limiting how much time I spend on my hobbies. I have lived so much of my adult life on my own and have become such a creature to my own habits and routines that any little change to my everyday life feels unbearably hard.

The truth is, I love being single and living alone. I find myself scrolling through the dating apps because I feel like I should want to be in a relationship. And then I swipe and swipe and swipe, and nobody matches with me, and man, there’s nothing more demoralizing than getting the notification from Bumble that I’ve reached my swipe limit for the day, and have nothing to show for it. Not great for my self-esteem! So then I just forget about the apps and dating and the whole shebang for a few months. Then, friends ask me about my dating life or tell me exciting news about their other single friends who have found love, and I feel like I’m disappointing them by not having any funny dating stories or exciting news of my own to share.

I guess where I’m going with this is that I still hope that I will find that forever partner, someone who makes me so incandescently happy that I want to give up some parts of my singleness for. But I also know my life is already so full without this person, and it will continue to be so if I never find them.

This past year has not been my favorite (see above, re: physical ailments), but there have been good moments. There was a reading retreat and two girls’ weekends and an Orlando vacation with my mom. There was London, which was the most fun time! There were super fun book club experiences, like a cheesy JCPenney photoshoot, bingo night, and fancy afternoon tea. There was the (stupid) Fight for Air Climb and climbing 914 steps. There were fun adventures with Jenny and Birchie (cat cafes & art museums & bookstores, oh my!) There was the podcast and recording 22 episodes this year – a record for us! There was cleaning up my diet and losing 18 lbs and making great progress in my fitness abilities. I tried new things and grew closer to old friends and continued to try to be the kind of people manager I would want for myself.

It was a hard year, but I’m coming out of it with a fresh perspective about what I want for my life. I’m thinking about things like how to lower the inflammation in my body (which I believe has been the catalyst for all of my physical ailments) and how to make my new apartment a home and how to be a better friend. I want to continue losing weight, not because I need to fit into smaller pants but because I want to continue lowering my A1C and get my heart disease numbers out of the danger zone. I want to return to therapy and work through some of those stubborn thought patterns that keep holding me back. I just want to continue striving to be the best version of myself.

Here’s to 38 – may there be fewer doctor visits and more beautiful adventures.