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What do you do when medications don’t work as well as you’d like? In my new column for HealthCentral, I write about how developing a hopeful mindset can help you get through the pain and frustration:

“EVERYWHERE YOU LOOK, there is hopeful news about rheumatoid arthritis (RA) treatment and what it can do for your life—all of it blissful or super-athletic—like those pharma ads that feature a couple walking on the beach, golden lab puppy running ahead. Or the one with a person welding (no, I don’t get it either), and running marathons, seemingly pain-free. And let’s face it: None of that’s attainable to all of us. In fact, depending on which RA remission criteria you use, that’s not even most of us. I love that so much of the messaging about RA is positive and hopeful because this brings me joy after spending most of my life in a time when there wasn’t much hope. Yet too much focus on remission may exclude those in the community who, for various reasons, haven’t gotten there yet. So let’s talk about what happens when the meds don’t work, how it feels and how to cope with a reality that is very much not a walk in the park (or on a beach).

I have been there myself, having lived most of my life in a place of uncontrolled RA. I’ve experienced the tightrope balancing act of trying to carve out a life while taking care of my pain-riddled body during flares, (can you call them flares if they never go away?). Adding to the frustration are the barriers that can get in your way, including access to a rheumatologist and medication, as well as the money to pay for treatment—or, even if you have access, not finding a medication that works reliably and consistently. It takes a lot of grit and support to live through this kind of life.”

Read my column about how I created hope when the RA meds didn’t work on HealthCentral.