Community Forums Roundup: Support for the Undiagnosed and Newly Diagnosed

Here at RheumatoidArthritis.net, our community members and the stories they share in our forums are invaluable sources of connection, knowledge, and support for all, no matter where they are in their RA journey.

To bring more awareness to important topics in the community and to highlight some of the amazing conversations taking place in our community forums, we are continuing to gather together a few perspectives on this month's most popular discussion topics. You can find the previous month's forum roundup here.

In each of the topic sections below, you can enter your own response to the prompt in the white box and click "Share my response," or click on "View all responses" to read advice and stories from fellow community members and Health Leaders. We'll see you there!

RA diagnosis

What would you say to someone who was newly diagnosed with RA? New members are joining the rheumatoid arthritis community every day. Many people express fear, hesitation, confusion, and other emotions when receiving a diagnosis of RA.

A new community member shared their emotional experience with possibly being diagnosed, and another member recently shared that they were just diagnosed:

CommunityMember244a34: "Hello, I am new to RA. In fact, I have not been diagnosed or tested for it yet. But I have some symptoms. I am really worried about having it. Basically, terrified..."

Ainesey: "Diagnosed with RA today..."

RA pain management

Many of our community members often express difficulty managing the pain that comes with living with RA and its symptoms.

Recently, more community members shared their trials and tribulations with pain and the effort to manage it with medications:

CommunityMemberab9140: "I am drained with pain in my shoulder I have today had an injection of anesthetic +steroid should have helped right away my consultant said it has not, increased my medication again. Feeling so so tired I am thinking of..."

RA community poll