Living

Chronic pain is so different from temporary pain. The ephemeral pain that can be brought on by injury or sickness garners a certain level of respect. Used to feeling well...

I’m sitting in my wheelchair, minding my own business, while taking the elevator and BAM! Someone decides I look like furniture and grabs my handlebar or starts to lounge on me...

I’ve had a nagging thought, a theory really, that only becomes more persistent as I communicate with more and more people with autoimmune conditions. The thought is this: Are people...

What’s life with RA really like? As with many chronic conditions, particularly those considered to be “invisible illnesses”, the full impact an individual’s life can be difficult to assess. While...

I can’t get excited about the holidays this year.  It all just feels like too much.  And ask anyone I know, I am a master gift giver and love bringing...

Side effects from medications can sometimes be just as uncomfortable and miserable as the condition for which a person is taking them. It's one of the challenging Catch-22 situations of...

When I had my first joint replacements, I remember telling a friend that I was worried about the lifespan of my joints. My doctor said that the new joints were...

Today I made my Christmas list for Santa. Don’t those sound great? Yep, but here’s the reality: I already have a four-year-old Kindle Fire. It works great on airliners and...

Glance at the news online some morning or turn on the radio or TV at nearly any given moment and you'll find an alarming number of stories saturated with violence: shootings...

I like to think of myself as a practical person. However, if I’m honest, I sometimes put vanity and ego before practicality, even when it comes to RA. Rheumatoid arthritis...

Hundreds of our RheumatoidArthritis.netcommunity members recently participated in the “Handling the Holidays” survey; Thanks to everyone who took the survey! As we know, the holidays can be a wonderful time...

I don’t use the common name of the disease I’ve had for almost three decades. Instead, I call it rheumatoid disease, and there’s a reason. As a writer, I love...

I won’t deny that I love the Internet. I’ve been an avid website explorer, both for fun and for work, since the late 1990s. (Yes, I know how old that...

Many people with “invisible disabilities” have felt at one point or another that the severity of their condition is called into question. As it is possible to have severe rheumatoid...

On September 13, a 72-year-old disabled woman with multiple sclerosis lost her life in the California wildfire known as the Valley fire. She died because she was unable to leave...

This is without a doubt my absolute favorite time of year.  Yes, I actually do better RA wise once the days are a bit more crisp, the humidity has gone...

We’ve all been in those situations where someone shares with us that they have cancer, are in need of surgery, or have another serious health condition, and we’re left wondering...

I recently wrote about a terrible experience flying that resulted in my wheelchair being destroyed by the airline. Another part of this story concerned how I was treated by the...

"Ask and you shall receive" is a wonderful suggestion, but short of having a magic genie in our pockets, it is not true, for the most part.  However how I...

Everyone knows about hangovers, where one indulges in too much alcohol and then pays for it the next day in headaches and nausea. Those of us with rheumatoid arthritis are...