So I am improving. Moving better, left knee hands and feet still not great.... But I can walk and get around more. Weak and feeble but not the excruciating pain. Pain is there in areas but on a different level. Oh my I knew that I was beginning to flare but didn't expect this as a birthday present... My birthday was on Monday. Still family here and managed a bit of cake Monday afternoon. My poor little girl was so upset because it was my birthday and also it is scarey to see me like that. She sobbed because she has seen me relatively well for the last 3mths and doing so much. It is hard for her to understand why the meds don't make the RA go away for good. It is hard enough having RA to deal with myself let alone loved ones. My daughter is 12 years old and in the last 4years she has seen me ill from RA and allergic reactions. A serious allergic reaction where we had to call paramedics, another time in November when I woke up in a similar situation to this Sunday night. She was frightened and the thing is with all of it no matter how you reassure and explain things... Why Mummy's body doesn't always like the meds, why RA doesn't just get better, why even when the meds work it doesn't always go to plan. I know that for her she is scared. Scared that Mummy can't do things that Mummy will never be better, that Mummy will die. I know many people find that explaining RA isn't easy. In the early days when my symptoms were called low grade and it was hard to explain RA because it didn't effect me as it does now, I would get upset because my diagnosis and the gradual realisation of what RA is was met with people being bemused...while I was scared and felt this sense of frustration that people weren't understanding me..... Well you look so well, why are you doing that strange diet, go on have a cake, just take the meds I would. I have some great friends and family who are bright and caring but I realised that unless people are willing to hear what RA is, to learn about it, and why it is a serious illness that has the potential to stop your life as you know it in its tracks, then people just won't get what you are going through. Once things change and it becomes bloody obvious that you are ill, then people start to realise. As I say the friends and family I have around me are loving and more supportive than some people have. RA is a cruel horrible disease. It is tough to have it, it is tough for those that love you to deal with. I have seen the effect it has had on my, parents, my husband,.... 'We feel so helpless'..... My beautiful, loving, caring little girl sad and scared.
So to all people who have RA you are truely brave. You deal daily with what would floor most if they experienced it for just one day. Thank you to the people who 'get it' on this forum and the NRAS charity.
Most of all thank you to my little girl who I adore..... Your smile lights up my day.
Blood tests don't show a flare
Update on paracetamol and long term use. 
Update on my Wife
