The ultimate guide to living well with this chronic, at times debilitating, autoimmune disease. Lene Andersen has 40+ years of living with RA and is working as Community Leader for HealthCentral.com's RA site. She has amassed an almost encyclopedic knowledge of how to manage the many challenges of life with the disease. Your Life with Rheumatoid Arthritis covers medication and treatment options, questions of opioids and addiction, down-to-earth tips to manage side effects, and techniques to control the pain that is often part and parcel of RA. This is an informative, honest and often very funny book. It offers hope, comfort and help to empower both the newly diagnosed and those who have had the disease for years.--P. [4] of cover.

A trusted guide and an invaluable resource, Living with Rheumatoid Arthritis offers practical advice for the millions of people coping with this painful disease. Now thoroughly revised and expanded, in a second edition, this book brings readers up to date with the latest methods of diagnosis and treatment. Building on their accessible explanation of the disease and its causes, the authors describe the essential components of care: medication, joint protection, physical activity, and good nutrition. They provide a wealth of new information on medications, including biologic response–modifiers, alternative and complementary approaches, and treatments for osteoporosis (which often accompanies rheumatoid arthritis), and they describe safe and effective ways to cope with pain, stiffness, and fatigue. The book helps readers understand their own emotional responses, as well as those of family and friends, and, because the disease often entails lifestyle changes, it provides practical advice for achieving as normal a life as possible. With the latest information on medication, nutrition, and resources (online and off), this volume is a complete and comprehensive guide to the management of a difficult disease.

Too often, people faced with a disease such as rheumatoid arthritis hear words like, "disabling," "progressive," or "tragic." "Tragic" may be what people are saying but the real tragedy is that these often repeated words do nothing but harm to those who hear them. They completely ignore a very real truth: physical issues can absolutely lead to positive transformation, action, challenge, inner strength, deep courage, and compassion. This unique book is written by someone who knows her subject well. Kat Elton, an occupational therapist and woman who's had rheumatoid arthritis since age two, knows that people with RA don't need false hope or to be told what to do. What they do need is to be led toward believing in themselves and improving their reality no matter what it is. Part practical guide, part workbook, part memoir, this book demonstrates that although there is no magic bullet or cure for rheumatoid arthritis, there is a way to live well with this disease.

This book will enable you to: * Understand more about Rheumatoid Arthritis and the medication involved * Reduce the pain that you experience * Use joint protection techniques * Appreciate the importance of exercise and good posture * Relax and manage your stress * Adapt to the changes in your working and leisure life * Achieve a positive outlook * There's also an A-Z of well being and a list of useful resources.

A guide to living well with this common—and complex—condition from“one of the most reliable, respected health resources that Americans have” (Publishers Weekly). From the doctors at Mayo Clinic—the top-ranked hospital in the country according to US News & World Report—this book is a complete guide to understanding and living with arthritis. Find the latest expertise on various forms of arthritis, medications and other treatment options, and self-care to successfully manage joint pain and stay active and independent. If you have joint pain, you know it can lead to frustrating limitations in daily life. In fact, this complex group of joint diseases—osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, and many other forms—is the most common cause of disability in the United States. But living with it doesn’t have to mean sitting on the sidelines. This book offers the same expert knowledge that Mayo Clinic doctors, nurses and therapists use in caring for patients. Mayo Clinic Guide to Arthritis: • Breaks down different forms of arthritis and joint pain to help you understand their causes, their signs and symptoms, and what each may mean for your health • Explores the latest in arthritis treatments, including new medications to slow or stop the disease, improved options for joint surgery, joint injections, and evidence-based guidance on pain control and integrative medicine • Provides practical tips for living with arthritis while exercising, traveling, or working • Offers useful advice on diet, mental health, and protecting your joints

She begins, in the morning, by casing her joints: Can her ankles take the stairs? Will her fingers open a jar? Peel an orange? But it was not always this way for Mary Felstiner, who went to bed one night an active professional and healthy young mother, and woke the next morning literally out of joint. With wrists and elbows no longer working right, she?d discovered one of the first signs of rheumatoid arthritis, the most virulent form of a common disease. Out of Joint is her account of living through arthritis, a distinction she shares with seventy million Americans. ø While arthritis pain affects one out of three Americans, this book is the first to tell the personal story of the nation?s most common yet neglected disease. Part memoir, part medical and social history, Out of Joint folds the author?s private experience into far-reaching investigations of a socially hidden ailment and of any chronic condition?how to handle love, work, sexuality, fatigue, betrayal, pain, time, mortality, rights, myths, and memory. Moving from the 1940s to the present, this story of one life with arthritis exposes little-known medical research and provocative social issues: alarming controversies over arthritis miracle drugs, intense demands concerning disability, and the surprising and disproportionate number of women affected by chronic illness. From this prize-winning historian comes a call for healing through history, a moving meditation on the way chronic conditions can be treated by enlisting the past.

The latest therapies and medications, diet and exercise, controlling pain, building a health care team, finding support and much more.