Does RA Make Me Klutzy?
I’ll be the first to admit – I’ve never been the most coordinated person in the world.
But as of late, I have become totally accident-prone.
I’ve had more injuries in the last 6 years (since I was diagnosed) than I’ve ever had previously in the rest of my life.
So are my joints sensitive and/or weak, and that makes me more injury-prone? Or, have I always been that way, but I feel it more acutely now than I did before?
Loss of balance: a symptom or result of RA?
When I walk on the sidewalk, it feels more like I’m walking on a balance beam or a tightrope. In reality, I might have more than two feet of space, but I might as well only have a few inches.
I feel off-balance sometimes, like the tiniest uneven spot on the sidewalk is a ripe place to lose my balance and fall.
I’ve never really inquired about whether loss of balance is an RA-related issue before, but it feels at least some way related, to me.
Is vertigo also a culprit?
One of my first symptoms that I now know was directly related to being sick was severe vertigo.
While I’ve only had a few episodes of full-on vertigo since then, I do feel like my balance is somewhat off. But again, I’m not sure if it’s simply because I am klutzy and have always been, or if it’s that RA has made me more accident-prone.
I’ve twisted and rolled my ankles numerous times, once so severely that I had to wear a boot and be on crutches. I had never had to use crutches before, so this wasn’t a fun experience.
Next steps: improving balance issues
So is my klutziness a symptom of the disease or a result of it? Or is it just me, but I notice it now more than I did before because I have pain and stiffness in my joints?
You would think having pain all the time would make it more difficult to diagnose an injury, but in my experience, the pain is a different kind. It’s like acute pain feels different than chronic pain.
So I guess I need to work on my balance. I’m not exactly sure how to do that, but something’s got to give. I can’t constantly be tripping over my own feet for the rest of my life. Considering how many times I’ve almost fallen, I guess I’m just lucky that I’ve had only one major injury that I can recall and not a whole lot more.

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