Journaling with Chronic Illness: Tracking Your Life
Using a journal when you have a chronic illness can be helpful in many different ways. In the first post of this series, I talked about using expressive writing to process your feelings and thoughts and as a tool to cope. But as any bullet journaler knows, your notebook can also be a fantastic…
How I Came to Terms With Taking Meds for RA
Rheumatoid arthritis medication get a bad rap. In this column for HealthCentral, I talk about how to handle the stigma of treating your RA with medicine in a culture obsessed with an “all-natural” approach to healing: “EVERY DAY, I take medication for my rheumatoid arthritis (RA), including self-injection with a biologic drug I stash in the…
The Best Thing You Can Say or Do When Someone’s in Pain
Living with chronic pain is incredibly difficult. It’s invisible, which means that in order to be understood, you have to tell people about it and that’s when you hit another barrier. How do you put into words something that is pure sensation and unlike anything the average person has experienced? But on the other side…
#TalkOverRA: Pro Tip to Help Your Rheumatologist Understand Your Pain
One of the defining characteristics of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is pain. It can run the gamut from mild or temporary to severe and chronic, caused by active inflammation or damage to the joints, exacerbated by overdoing it or not moving at all. Living with unpredictable pain is incredibly difficult — because (obviously) it’s deeply uncomfortable,…
Plan for the Curveball to Live Well with RA
When rheumatoid arthritis (RA) makes everything in your life uncertain, you can count on one thing: any plans you’ve had the audacity to make dispersing in the air as if hit by a magic spell. To paraphrase John Lennon, chronic illness is what happens when you make any plans. And when it happens often enough,…
How to Make RA Treatment Decisions With Less Stress
Rheumatoid arthritis and medication go hand in hand. But… what about the horror stories about side effects? How do you balance the fear of what might come with the meds with hope for remission? Read more in my new column for HealthCentral: “The ads make it look easy—you can create a wonderful life of walking…
Nothing More than Feelings: How Doctors Minimize RA Reality
Updated August 30, 2020 Catastrophizing is a popular concept in medicine, particularly when dealing with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and chronic pain. You’ll find endless studies and articles on the concept, described as negative self statements, feelings or coping strategies. For instance, someone saying “this is the worst pain I’ve ever had” or “what if I can’t…
Like Me: Finding My RA Community and Why It Matters
Updated November 12, 2022. Being different is both external and internal. Being the only person who looks a certain way set you apart in a group, designates you as Other. Even when the members of the group are your friends, there is something that makes you feel set apart. Finding your community, the people who…