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My daughter has been diagnosed and I want to understand what she is going through and how to help...

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jennl Member
Hi there! Thank you so much for posting here! So sorry to hear about your daughter's recent diagnosis. She is lucky to have such a caring and proactive parent. This page on "what is RA?" may be a great place to start: <a href='https://rheumatoidarthritis.net/what-is-ra' target='_blank'>http://rheumatoidarthritis.net/what-is-ra/</a>. If you have further questions, please feel free to come by any time! We're so glad you joined our community. Warmly, Jenn (Community Manager, <a href='https://rheumatoidarthritis.net' target='_blank'>RheumatoidArthritis.net</a>)
Member
Everyone experiences different pain with RA but if I had to explain what the pain felt like it would be something along the lines of having a deep bruise on your joint/s and someone keeps pressing on it, and the pressure of the pain is across your whole body. The other major pain is stiffness of the joints like they’re locked and it hurts to move and bend. I’m a recently diagnosed patient of RA so my family and I are still coming to terms in understanding how and what this means, right now all I can tell you it is a life changing experience not only for me but for everyone else around me too. My mum didn’t understand it at the beginning when I was trying to explain to her what RA is, in the mornings I’d have difficulties brushing my hair and she could see that this must be an effect of RA, she had good intentions to come over and help me, but when she did things like this I started to feel frustrated and angry at her cause it made me feel incompetent that I couldn’t do it on my own. The best way to understand what your daughter will be going through is to hear it from her and listen to the difficulties she maybe having and just ask “how can I help”. Sometimes there might be times where you can’t do anything and there maybe time where you can but maybe start off with small steps, let her know that if she needs help you are there in a split second.