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I’m one of the almost quarter of people with RA who also have fibromyalgia. In my new column for HealthCentral, I share how I manage these two chronic pain conditions:

“IT WAS A kind of pain I had never felt before, even in my then 30+ years of living with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). This was a pain that had a volume akin to a fire alarm blaring right next to my ear. It was a constant white noise that obliterated thought and memory and focus, accompanied by unrelenting fatigue.

New and scary symptoms ruled my every day, jumping from one area of my body to the next. The slightest pressure felt like I was being stabbed with a knife and the seam on my underpants caused excruciating pain and tingling in my limbs. My digestive system was in an uproar, my tongue was burning and hypersensitive to textured or crunchy foods, and the music I loved now sounded like a cacophony. My body was in hysterics and so was I, tipping over into constant panic and uncontrollable anger. I felt like I was losing my mind.

Conversations with my family saved me. My mother had been diagnosed with fibromyalgia several years earlier and when I listened to her story and symptoms, my own experience began to make sense. It took another six months for my doctors to agree with my self-diagnosis: I had fibromyalgia. That was the beginning of me learning to manage co-existing conditions with overlapping symptoms that needed very different coping techniques. And I’m not alone. Comorbidities—that is, other conditions that are associated with a primary diagnosis—are common with RA. So how do you figure out juggling necessary care for two (or more) different conditions?”

Read my column about managing RA and fibromylagia on HealthCentral.