9 Tips for Managing Rheumatoid Arthritis: ‘You Have to Learn How to Ask for Help’
Key takeaways:
Julie Payne was an active student and softball player when she started feeling joint pain.
She dismissed the pain at first but was later diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis.
She has found ways to manage her symptoms, such as using heating pads and making room for downtime.
Julie Payne had no idea that rheumatoid arthritis could start at such a young age.
She was in her early twenties when she began to experience pain in her hands, legs, and feet. At first, Julie attributed these symptoms to her active lifestyle. By the time she was 25, however, she was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis.
“When I was diagnosed, I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, this explains why I had so many random aches and pains,’” she says.
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune disease that leads to joint inflammation. Symptoms include pain, swelling, and stiffness in the joints. It affects about 1.5 million Americans, and women are three times more likely than men to get RA. The condition most commonly begins in women between the ages of 30 and 60.
Julie says her first few years living with RA were difficult. She had played softball on her college team, and she loved sports like snowboarding, but she had to stop those activities.
Now, at 42 and living in Southern California, Julie is a licensed marriage and family therapist and has two kids. She has found ways to manage her symptoms while incorporating physical activity back into her life.
“You have to learn how to ask for help.”
Here are nine tips she has for living with RA.
1. Find a support group
Shortly after her diagnosis, Julie joined a support group for young adults with RA and found it comforting.
“I was lucky to have found people who use a lot of humor to normalize what I was going through,” she says.
2. Pain medication isn’t always the answer
Pain relief medications you might use for other aches and pains, such as over-the-counter ibuprofen pills, didn’t always work for Julie.
She uses Voltaren, a topical gel, to reduce inflammation when the pain becomes too much. She says it’s important to consulta rheumatologist, who can direct you to the right medication.
3. Heat is your friend
Julie has found that heat is another good source of relief. She uses heating pads, hand warmers, and warm compresses to help reduce inflammation in her joints.
“At one point, I would shove my hands in very hot water just to get the pain down,” she says. “I sit in the hot tub for hours to help with my back.”
4. Staying active is about finding balance
Julie says it’s important to walk the fine line between doing too much physical activity and not enough. She strives for balance.
If she does an outdoor activity with her kids one day, for instance, she plans for recovery time the next day and can’t do another strenuous activity the next day. If Julie does too little activity, she says her muscles feel weaker.
“I know when I do something like canoeing, my arms won’t work for the rest of the day, and it’s going to be a whole thing,” she says. “I had to learn to build in the rest and recovery time for my own benefit.”
5. Drinking can be off-limits
Depending on what medications you’re taking, you might need to stay away from alcohol.
Julie is on Methotrexate, which prevents her from consuming alcohol, but she found that she still had to deal with the social pressure to have a drink.
“Thankfully, I had really good friends who supported me,” she says. “I would put cranberry juice in a martini glass to make it look like I was drinking when out with friends.”
6. There’s no shame in using handicap parking
After Julie contracted RA, she lost a significant amount of strength. Her rheumatologist recommended she have a handicap placard as a precaution, but Julie was resistant at first. She found it embarrassing, and she was worried about how others might react to seeing someone without a visible disability using a handicap space.
“I didn’t want to advertise that I was handicapped, so I hid it at first,” she says. “The times I did use it back then, I would get a lot of dirty looks and nasty notes on my car.”
Now she has no shame in using the handicap placard and wishes more people would talk to her about why she needs it.
7. Ask for help when you need it
During her first few years living with RA, Julie lost a lot of the muscle she had built playing softball. She needed help even with simple daily tasks like brushing her hair or reaching something on a high shelf.
“I took for granted all the things I didn’t need help with before I had rheumatoid arthritis,” she says. “It affects your mental health. But you have to learn how to ask for help with things like turning the key in the ignition for your car.”
8. Identify what foods cause inflammation for you
One of the first things Julie and her doctors tried to manage her RA was eliminating certain foods from her diet. She has tried cutting out many different anti-inflammatory foods and has come to one conclusion: Everyone is different, so you have to experiment and see how your body reacts.
“I remember eliminating nightshades and seeing if that would help, trying gin-soaked raisins and all these other fads. Eating a clean diet and avoiding a lot of fried food was when I saw the biggest change,” she says.
9. Advocate for yourself
Over the years, Julie has learned to advocate for herself when she isn’t feeling her best. She isn’t shy about communicating her needs to her family, friends, and medical team. If her body is telling her she needs to slow down, she does. Her family is supportive, which helps Julie get the downtime she needs.
“My family and kids are understanding of when mom needs her rest time now,” she says.
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