What lies beneath... Ok, so on the outside others can see you have the swollen knees and ankles, bent fingers and sweaty face,BUT

[Jan66]

What lies beneath?

My teeth hurt, my nose gets blocked, my eyes feel tired and now, best of all, have constipation and diarrhoea - oh joy.

So, please all you R A sufferers how do you cope cos I'm bl**dy well fed up with it all!!!

Jan

[Hidden]

Vodka!! .....But seriously I just cope at the mo by taking painkillers and waiting for meds to work and a guided steroid jab....trying to keep active so I don't seize up and if I feel down somedays I allow myself to...don't beat yourself up Coming on here for tips and advice too....oooh and rest when I can and need to. Good luck I hope you feel better soon

[helixhelix]

Keep a diary, and hopefully you'll see a slow improvement..... I used to draw pictures and made a little flip book with them. So had a diagram of a body that I put red dots on where it hurt. And the more it hurt the bigger the dot. So at the start practically all you could see was red blobs. But slowly (very slowly) the red dots started to fade away. And now I just have little pin points. Even tho' the change was excruciatingly slow it helped keep me going. Hang on in there, it will improve. Polly

[Luthien66]

Hi Jan, Yes it just grinds you down & down sometime, but never give up don't let it beat you. Ditto on Amanda & Polly, you will eventually find what works for you and slowly you will see improvement. There's no quick fix I'm afraid, it's a long hard struggle for us all but there is always light at the end of the tunnel....I'm a firm believer in that. I've had some really rough times when the pain was continuous & unbearable but I came thru it....still have rough days but learnt to deal with them on a day by day basis. Whenever you feel crap there is always someone here to pick you up. Big hugs xx

[Hidden]

There's a great site called 'reliefinsite' which is really useful for tracking symptoms and spotting patterns - you can print out charts for your doctors. Someone on this site told me about it a couple of years ago.

And yes, it does get better, meanwhile take adequate pain relief, if what you have isn't strong enough then ask your doctor for something more effective. Nefapam added to Tramadol makes it more effective. It doesn't relieve pain but works in the brain altering your perception of pain - weird but useful. It does make me dopey but once you're at that level of pain you're not likely to be trying to drive or go anywhere other than the sofa or your bed!

Cece x