![]() ![]() To all you shoppers out there: use the electric carts! When I started using my scooter for all my shopping activities it really changed things and gave me lots more freedom. I think that the doctors don’t tell us about this because they truly don’t understand and because the adage “use it or lose it” is so entrenched in their minds. It is hard to remember not to overdo it and to endure (and ignore) the advise from others to “feel the burn”. I’ve had to force myself to do about an 1/8 of what the others are doing in class. Then, I get home and can barely change my clothes. For example, I feel so terrific in the pool that I will do all of the exercises with my class without any pain. So, we have to learn where the limits are from past experience. We can’t go by pain at the time of usage because the pain and fatigue from the activity sometimes doesn’t show up for a couple of days. Figuring out what is overuse is up to you. It is if you over use it, you will lose it. In post polio treatment, we have a usage principal too. Ok, I’m going to do another Polio comparison here and you will see why I had such a hard time differentiating between my onset of RA and my post-polio syndrome. She has lived over fourteen years with unrelenting RD. Kelly is a mother of five, longtime home-schooler, NASA enthusiast, and NFL fan. You can also connect with Kelly on Twitter or YouTube, or LinkedIn. There are over 60,000 connections of her highly interactive Facebook page. In addition to RA Warrior, she writes periodically for newsletters, magazines, and websites. Through her writing and speaking, she builds a more accurate awareness of rheumatoid disease (RD) aka rheumatoid arthritis (RA) geared toward the public and medical community creates ways to empower patients to advocate for improved diagnosis and treatment and brings recognition and visibility to the RA patient journey. She is the president of the Rheumatoid Patient Foundation. Kelly received national acknowledgement with the 2011 WebMD Health Hero award. She is the author of the best-selling book Rheumatoid Arthritis Unmasked: 10 Dangers of Rheumatoid Disease. Kelly O'Neill (formerly Kelly Young) has worked about 12 years as an advocate helping patients to be better informed and have a greater voice in their healthcare. What is Remission of Rheumatoid Arthritis? Part 1.Can Rheumatoid Arthritis Affect the Spine?.10 Dumb Questions About an MRI for Rheumatoid Arthritis.What Is it Like to Have Rheumatoid Arthritis? Part 1: The Usage Principle. ![]() Maybe doctors haven’t heard of it from any patients. Maybe researchers don’t know about this aspect of living with RA. They would behave themselves much differently now. Maybe it would have been better for me if they had. I’ve told you before: my joints didn’t read the books first. Why didn’t anyone tell me what to expect? I first learned of the Rheumatoid Arthritis fatigue by experience. I spent the first 6 months of RA in shock mentally about what was happening to me every day as new joints hurt. Then I realized: I was never warned about most of the things I live with every day. I’ve begun to wonder whether they know that this is a huge part of living with Rheumatoid Arthritis. ![]() As a matter of fact, they have never admitted that I am not the only one. My doctors didn’t offer me a name for it. Maybe you wonder why I made up the cool name “The Usage Principle” for this phenomenon. I seldom mention to anyone that life is darn hard every day.ĭo they know what living with RA is like? When I can do any kind of work or exercise, it is followed by a recovery period. It affects everything from flossing my teeth to chores to sports. She said that her RA is much worse and realized that the reason she had felt so much better before was that she had been able to rest more while out of work.īy the way, this makes life pretty difficult for those of us with RA in every joint. Recently, a veteran RA’er described going to work at a new job. There are many examples in the comments on this blog. This can translate into pain and stiffness when movement lasts more than a few minutes.įor patients like this, there is a recovery period after activity. Basically, the problem is that any use of a joint which is inflamed by Rheumatoid Arthritis usually leads to worse inflammation. However, lots of comments describe the problem in other contexts. The concept is explained in Part 1 with shopping as an example. There may be some I just haven’t seen any. I did not quote any because I did not find any. Perhaps you noticed that blog post was unusual in that it did not have footnotes or links to studies which discussed the subject. In the Part 1: The Usage Principle, we discussed a phenomenon which is a daily issue for many people living with Rheumatoid Arthritis. The Usage Principle makes living with Rheumatoid Arthritis hard ![]()
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