please come and talk to me about rheumatoid arthritis, I have just been diagnosed...

[fadingaway]

..after feeling like shit for ages.

i am waiting for blood test results and then the rheumatologist will start me on sulfasalazine or methotrexate.

Am a bit shellshocked really as though arthritis was what old ladies suffer from and I'm not (that)old.

Grateful for any advice anyone has.

these people hav helped my friend immensely

thank you Iwish. Their name was mentioned to me at the hospital but was a case of in one ear and out the other!

First of all, you can get rheumatoid arthritis at any age! My sister has had it since university.

What really helps her, along with her meds, is gentle exercise, like swimming or water based aerobics. Oh and she says when she was pregnant, not one symptom, but you may not want to go that route.

tempting Tee, but I have 4DDs and a DS

A gluten free diet can help with the symptoms if you fancy giving the natural approach a go.

some symptomatic relief has also been experienced by sufferers following a diet high in shellfish - discovered accidentally during a Royal Marsden clinical trial on something else entirely and picked up by RA sufferers as being of enormous benefit - their RA symptoms reduced drastically whilst taking part in the trial, despite RA not being the focus of the trial lol...

gentle exercise definitely, but rest during a flare-up.
(or you can adopt my mother's method, which involves sitting on the sofa, eating biscuits, and booking the builders to make disabled adaptations). I wouldn't necessarily recommend this approach lol, but i do understand people deal with things differently. when the doc said 'no exercise (during a flare up') she heard 'no exercise at all' and has been resolutely sticking to that for years, dspite gentle encouragement from the whole family, and the production of many research reports showing gentle movement is beneficial is reducing symptoms...
ah well.
the national rheumatoid arthritis society is a good source of info too, and has lots of helpful information as well as keeping you abreast of what is being done in the research community.

many thanks madwoman - I am still working and find that moving around is helpful.It's when I'm stll that I stiffen up.

I have a consultant appointment on Thursday.

I can't abide shellfish .

my dh has this.

a vegetarian diet plus fish can help enormously.

take fish oil or flax seed oil and also cyder vinegar every day.

avoid too much coffee, red meat, tobacco, potatoes, tomatos.

make sure you get enough calcium from green veg rather than milk. infact cutting out dairy is good but you must replace the nutrients with green veg and omega fats

lying in the sun also helps.

could you move to the mediterranean and live the life of riley?

fadingaway, I was diagnosed with this a year ago. It then went straight into remission but it has now come back. I am desparately waiting for my hospital appointment to come up so I can start taking methotrexate. I am scared about the whole thing. I'm living on anti-inflammatories at the moment. I work full-time and it is so difficult to get dressed and get moving in the morning. There is also www.rheumatoid.org.uk which is good. I paid the subscription to give me access to the forums, etc.
Can't offer you any great advice but I just wanted you to know you are not the only one going through this.