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RHEUMATOID ARTHRITIS

Your head is pounding, your joints are aching, your stomach hurts, your chest is tight, you’re feeling tired and confused, why, all because it’s medication day and you’re dealing with the terrible side effects from the medication you hate you have to take.  All you want to do is lie down but even that doesn’t bring the relief you’re craving.  No one knows just how hard it is to live a life with Rheumatoid Arthritis and suffer from the effects of the medication given to make you better.

I know we all dread taking our medication and the side effects that we know are sure to  come from it but this is a part of Life With Rheumatoid Arthritis.  Coping with those dreadful times is something we have come to expect but something that we will never get use too.  It doesn’t matter if it’s every day, every other day, once a month or every 6 months, our lives are filled with medication and the rigorous routine we have to stick too in hopes of being okay.  Those dreadful days of pills, shots, injections or infusions and the myriad of side effects to follow has become what we now call our norm. The things we hate most besides this disease that is affecting our lives in ways beyond our belief.

Our norm, the effects that starts from our head and ends in our feet is more than most can handle but we as sufferers fight this battle just to be able to function even though this is the price we pay to function.  Suffering to be better is suffering just the same.  We are fatigued, nauseous, weak and most times just plain sick.   We have to summon strength in an attempt to make a move all the while our heads are spinning but we find we may eventually move only to stagger back, fall into bed hoping those feelings will subside.  As sick as we may be, sleep is foreign so our days turn into night and back to morning again and we’re still feeling the same.  Food isn’t on our minds because our stomachs are doing somersaults so staying away from it is our only hope of making it feel better.  How do we make ourselves better is the question we’re asking ourselves but we’ve learned that may or may not come with time and then it’s back to the same old routine.

Through all that we go through time and time again, it hardly ever gets better and we still don’t know how to prepare ourselves for our next run with the side effects. This is the price we pay for keeping our disease under control.  You see we wonder how can this come from a medication that is supposed to fight our horrible disease while making us feel so miserable.  The nausea remains, dizziness prevails, fatigue over rules and the aches that we feel are all just a part of how long our road with RA is.  You see we have two (2) fights on our hands and many don’t know it.  Our fight with Rheumatoid Arthritis and our fight to get better.

People do not understand just how sick we are from taking our medications. For those that are forced to go to work it has to be horrible to try to function on any level when all you want to do is just lay your body down.  Comfort barely comes from laying down so working through this takes strength as you forge ahead with your days.  We are underestimated in our strength with RA because we can’t give up on trying to get better or stop this disease from doing more to us than it possibly can.  Yes it gets the best of us sometimes but our true fight is unseen and how much we struggle daily is truly unknown.

So when we crawl into bed unable to cook, clean,  go to work or do any of the things we should, know that we are facing a battle of survival with the “common effects” of our medication.  This is what happens when we face the challenges of what’s called common effects so imagine those who also face the “major” effects which is wrecking havoc on their body and mind.  We are suffering and would give anything not to feel this way.  Our time in bed is tormented by so much and rest is definitely not what we’re getting.  When you see us laying there appearing to be totally exhausted, we are.  We are exhausted both physically and mentally.

Living a life like this takes its toll on us which in turn takes its toll on those in our lives.  Please understand to be beaten and broken is not the life we want.  It is not our doing but the disease that has taken over our bodies and the medication we take to fix it.

Be Blessed.