Staying Positive
Hello,
I'm Jennifer, age 29, and was diagnosed with RA last week. It started with my left pinky starting to hurt in August, then it became swollen. Skipping to present, I'm now on Plaquenil and have a follow-up with my rheumatologist in two weeks. Even though only one joint is inflamed (my knees and right foot hurt occasionally, but no swelling), and it was caught very early, I'm still coming to terms that I have a disease. And I don't want it to get worse. (I need my hands to play guitar lol!!)
How do you stay positive while living with RA? I keep telling myself that I'm going to put it into remission, and try not to think about it too much by keeping myself busy. Also, when did you finally accept that you had RA?
dreamer11,
Welcome to our community, glad that you found us and reached out for support. First and foremost sorry to hear about your diagnosis, but glad you caught it in the early stages. We have many articles on our site that may be helpful to you. Feel free to use the search functionality at the top right, to find speicific articles.
You may resonate with all of our contributors but I thought Nan's articles would be helpful here is a link: https://rheumatoidarthritis.net/author/nmhart14/
Additionally, here is an article on early signs and symptoms.
https://rheumatoidarthritis.net/ra-in-america-2013/early-signs-diagnosis-and-initial-ra-symptoms/
Keep us posted on your journey and feel free to reach out anytime.
Best,
Lauren (RheumatoidArthritis.net Team)
