I Have Rheumatoid Arthritis and Life is My Exercise
Nothing with RA is simple and that includes exercise. In my new CreakyJoints Canada column, and write about my experience approach to keeping physically active with my RA and disability: rheumatoid arthritis
““How do you exercise? Do you go to physiotherapy?”
The are many different specialties and professions within health care, some specifically medical, others supportive (occupational therapists, social workers, and so on), but what they all have in common is asking me this question. They look at me, seated in my purple power wheelchair, joints visibly affected by severe rheumatoid arthritis (RA), and exercise is one of their first questions. Yes, even when their area of expertise is unrelated to the physical management of my illness.
Several years ago, I hit my tolerance level for this question and created what has become my stock answer: ”My life is a range of motion exercise.”
I grew up in the time before effective RA treatment, back when most people became wheelchair users within 10 years of diagnosis and I had a severe case. RA inflammation galloped through my body, damaged my joints, and left me with permanent joint changes, limited mobility and flexibility, as well as chronic pain.
By the time I was 16, I used a power wheelchair on a permanent basis and for a while, I juggled high school and intensive physiotherapy. Every time I went to physio, I left with deep exhaustion and a flare and often had nothing left for homework. So, I stopped in the intensive therapy for my body and instead chose school and having fun with my friends. Because living life as much as I possibly could was a priority.
Redefining What Exercise Means to Me
Since then, I have occasionally gone back to physiotherapy, only to learn again and again that my body cannot handle what we normally define as exercise, especially after I developed fibromyalgia in my 40s.
Resistance exercises to build muscles make my joints flare, pool exercises drain all my energy, and my body cannot withstand anything aerobic. For years, this was incredibly frustrating, but then I realized that applying an able-bodied definition of exercise to a disabled body was a recipe for physical and emotional pain. Instead, I needed to start with what my body is actually able to do and work from there — but do it slowly.
Next, I had to think about my goal and based on what I knew about my body’s ability envelope — a phrase that sounds so much better than limits — I thought the best I could do was to maintain my state of health and strength. That’s when I adapted a “use it or lose it” attitude to my daily life. “
Read my CreakyJoints Canada column on exercise with severe RA.
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Ugh some one needs to tell Sheryl that i might not be able to keep up with exercise. That woman is trying to do me in one Park walk at a time. Good grief lady, there are other ways to do me in. Nope, she is determined to walk me into oblivion.
Oh, the things we do because it’s “good for us!”