Trying to adjust
I certainly can relate to many of the posts I’ve read here. I was perfectly healthy til March of 2022. I had Bronchitis that turned into pneumonia and was hospitalized. I had been only on thyroid meds prior to this but while hospitalized I was given several new drugs. After dismissal I was diagnosed with RA. Had never had it nor had any of my family.
In doing research on my health problems I discovered that RA can be caused by some drugs. I’m totally convinced this is how I came to have RA. I was working out at the Y and playing golf before the hospitalization . My life has totally changed. I’m in pain, RA pain meds do not help and I’m upset with this whole possibility that I might have been given a drug that triggered this RA diagnosis.
Online credible websites confirm the possibility that prescription drugs can cause RA.
Thank you for your comment. I do not have the same expirence, but I understand how such a mysterious disease, seems, well mysterious. My own point of view is that no matter the trigger, I was born with the fuse. My autoimmune system caused the disease, but what turned it on to never stop? Well that is the mystery for me. 
I also believe I was “born with the fuse.” My mom had an undiagnosed condition that I think may have been Sero-negative RA. I grew up in a house filled with cigarette smoke. I was treated for fibromyalgia for years. And I believe I know what lit my fuse. I had chronic tendinitis that was treated with trephination. Basically the doc poked a lot of holes in the tendon trying to stimulate inflammation and healing. I believe it was the last straw that pushed me in to RA. I was pretty desperate for relief and made the best decision I could at the time. Maybe the tendinitis itself was an early RA symptom? I believe RA had it’s sites on me and was inevitable. That procedure just pushed me over. If not it, it might have been the next cold I caught. With Hope for the fuse to turn our over active immune systems down, Jo I had always been healthy, until as of late. My wife and I went away on holiday and I was perfectly fine, This holiday was February 2020 just before Covid Lockdowns. Skip to 2023 I have a RA factor of 379. My wife and I looked back through the calendar to cipher exactly when I started feeling pain in my joints, I just thought I was getting old, anyway my flare started a week or 2 after my first covid vaccination, I got the Pfizer mrna vaccine. Unknowingly I got 2 more vaccinations same mrna. I continually have gotten worse, my feet and ankles look like Shrek feet. I'm not a go to the doctor kind of person so I continued to shrug it off to working to hard till I finally couldn't take it anymore. I have seen articles that state the mrna vaccine can trigger RA. Might be something for you to research. Wish you all the best. 
, thanks for mentioning this to and I am sorry you are dealing with RA. There is some data to suggest that almost any vaccination can trigger an overexaggerated immune response in certain individuals. Both MrNA and 'typical' vaccines. And, outside of noting if a person has had a strong immune response to previous vaccines, it's hard for doctors to predict who will and who will not be at risk for this strong reaction, unfortunately.
Thanks again for sharing this information and I hope your RA is starting to get a little more under control.
Best, Erin, RheumatoidArthritis.net Team Member.
Hi
. There has now been a good amount of research linking COVID vaccines as a trigger for autoimmune conditions. As noted in this article, all of the vaccines have been having this effect to some extent, including the non-mRNA vaccines (I want to note that there is no indication of the percentages provided controlled at all for the number of people who received each vaccine): https://www.cureus.com/articles/95397-covid-19-vaccine-related-arthritis-a-descriptive-study-of-case-reports-on-a-rare-complication#!/. Given that some medications and other vaccines have a history of triggering RA, the impact of the COVID vaccines in this area lends further evidence to the idea that things that spur an immune system reaction, particularly in inflammatory cytokines, can trigger autoimmune conditions.
A lot of questions are also raised, such as is there a predisposition that is triggered and is there a way to identify it? Can the "trigger" be turned off? Could this type of research lend itself to controlling/stopping autoimmune conditions in general (this last one is the big hope)? Best, Richard (RheumatoidArthritis.net Team)
I hear you, Annie. It's not easy to make sense of Rheumatoid Arthritis or any disease/diagnosis for that matter. It certainly does throw a big fat wrench in what was normal life for us before it.
I was 15, playing my favorite sport, volleyball, on my high school's JV team. Just a normal(ish) teen concerned with teenage things until one day my elbows blew up like little balloons and my life has literally never been the same. I certainly never played volleyball again.
While this is sad, it's also just the way it is. At least that's the way I see it now. Of course, I went through the normal stages of grief like most of us do because in some ways we literally have lost a life, at least as we knew it. It requires time to process. And of course, part of that process is curiosity and frustration about why this thing happened to me/you/us. Ultimately, we may never know. I think there's a multitude of factors at play and I think it's different for everyone. I've certainly never gotten any real answers, just a whole lot of possibilities. All we can do is make the best of the cards we're dealt I guess.
I hope you find your peace and know that you have support here.
Best,
Franki
