1. A Rheumatoid Disease diagnosis leads to a double life. Thanks to new treatments, many of us have hours every day when we appear to participate in life just as you do.  There are also private hours spent soaking in Epsom salt baths, taking pain medications, going to doctor’s appointments and physical therapy, meditating, exercising, journaling, supporting one another online, wearing compression gloves and socks, applying cold and hot packs, applying menthol creams and patches, dipping our hands in hot paraffin, napping, taking hot showers, and wearing splints and braces, all to possibly have a few precious hours of normal, or as close to it as we can get.  Sometimes it works, and sometimes the disease rules our day and all we can do is rest and take comfort measures.  This aspect makes traditional employment challenging for Rheumatoid Disease patients, 60% of which are disabled within 10 years of diagnosis.

2. Different than Osteo-Arthritis, Rheumatoid Disease is an auto-immune disorder that affects people of all ages, even children. Rheumatoid patients around the world advocate for “Rheumatoid Disease” to replace the term “Rheumatoid Arthritis” due to wide-spread misunderstanding.  Rheumatoid disease produces destructive molecules called fibroblasts that attack the protective lining around joints causing inflamed and shredded tendons, cartilage loss, and finally bone erosion.  That is the part you may be familiar with, but Rheumatoid Disease also causes:
   1. Costochondritis (painful swelling in the ribs)
   2. Uveitis (painful eye swelling, may cause vision loss)
   3. Pleurisy or interstitial lung disease
   4. Cervical subluxation and myelopathy (compression of the spinal cord)
   5. Kidney disease
   6. Atherosclerosis (heart disease), the leading cause of death in RD patients.

Educating health professionals about rheumatoid disease manifestations would facilitate early treatment of co-morbidities and delay disability.

3. Even when symptoms appear controlled, Rheumatoid Disease marches on and adapts to treatment.  RD insidiously erodes cartilage and bone while patients feel perfectly fine, especially during the first 5 years.  Recent MRI studies confirm that even in clinical remission, there is inflammation around the joints, indicating a need for life-long treatment. The first RD medication I took stopped working after 4 years.  Currently, my rheumatoid antibodies are eleven times the norm after 3 years on an expensive biologic injectable.  Our super-immunity develops work-arounds to the medicine.  In the near future I will need to add a low-dose chemotherapy drug to suppress my immune response.  We will have to try other medications that may or may not slow the disease as my immune system keeps adjusting.  There are many RD Warriors who haven’t found a medication that works well enough, or who have run out of options.  One friend of mine injects herself every week for a 20% improvement in Lupus and RD symptoms.

4. Rheumatoid Arthritis drug commercials exaggerate ability benefits and list a litany of risky side effects in a low monotone.  Actors appear in full remission without Prednisone moon-faces, but more than half of patients never achieve clinical remission for even a short period, and most medications help to a degree if at all.  Don’t get me wrong – I LOVE Enbrel because I can walk, fevers are less frequent, my pain is manageable, and I have little to no bone erosion.  While this miracle drug makes my life worth living, it doesn’t make running on a sandy beach or toting around a toddler on my hip possible.  More importantly, the medication doesn’t make working full-time possible because the disease is still active and unpredictable.  What it does make possible are life-threatening infections, which is why patients whose symptoms are fairly controlled often choose to risk joint erosion.  The risk-benefit ratio is tough to navigate, especially with the booming vitamin/supplement industry promising their own brand of remission.  Just like wrinkle cream promises, none are entirely accurate.

5. We need you to help us spread the word. Rheumatoid Arthritis is one of the 6 most debilitating diseases in the world, yet the number of rheumatology research projects funded by the National Institutes of Health dropped by 52% from 2010 to 2014, while the number funded by private foundations fell by 29% over that period, according to data published by the Rheumatology Research Foundation (RRF).  A cure is on the horizon with new immuno-therapy breakthroughs, but funding is moving in the wrong direction.