I read all the posts on flares. I read a lot of comments on what a flare is.
Most people describe theirs as major bouts of pain, swelling, fatigue and so
on that usually require narcotics and short term prednisone. Do any of you
have a flu like feeling such as stomach upset/queeziness, headaches,
general achiness in the joints and soft tissue pain, back pain. Also, sharp
pains in the ribs, abdomen, legs and anywhere else they decide to strike.
Also, sleep disturbances. Is this considered a flare? I don't have the major
fatigue and super bad pain in my joints, only soreness, stiffness and low
grade ache. Maybe I don't have RA. Maybe it is something else. Do any of
you have these symptoms?
Am I confused, or does that sound more like Lupus to anyone else?
Maybe I'm wrong...
i have questioned that too. But I don't have the rashes, kidney problems. IOne person's soreness, stiffness, and low grade ache is another person's flair.
Just think about a cold where symtoms like heavy coughing and and completely stuffed up head make one of your co-workers go to bed for a week. The same symtoms and the other lady comes to work, does her job, stops at the market, makes dinner for the kids, helps with homework, and finally goes to bed after loading the dish washer. She gets up and does the same thing the next day.
I get the ache, much stiffness, fatigue, sick to stomache, insomia, headaches, muscle pain, sharp stabs here and there. When I flair -more swelling, more pain, huge stiffness but the real key is fatigue for me. Truely a dragging lady with a Dragon temper.
I seldom have so much pain I just can't...whatever like after surgery. But I have had surgery, broken bones, and ra for 30 years, and maybe jra as well so perhaps I just don't know what it feels like to be well.
Could you just be a good coper or stoic in the face of long term pain?
Joonie didn't cry over her broken elbow.
I didn't cry over mine either - did not know it was broken for 4 or 5 weeks - just having more elbow trouble than usual.
There is a small percentage of people who never know they have RA - they get dx'd years into when they have an x-ray from a car accident.
p.s. Some of your trouble sounds like meds trouble (stomache and headache).
Pain is SO subjective. To my family, I am pretty much of a complainer and whiner. But I know that is not true - in the 70's I had three children by natural childbirth, one of which was breech. That is just what we did then. Then last year, on a trip to England & Scotland, I fell hard against the edge of a bathtub. Well, it hurt like he$$, but what do you do in a foreign country? I just carried on and in a month or two it felt better. Only later when I had a CT scan of my lungs did they discover "multiple healing rib fractures". Ouch. But I can honestly say that the pain I have had recently in my hands & wrists puts all that to shame. Lorster, what is your diagnosis, it sounds more like FM to me. Hope you are feeling better soon, you have to get some quality sleep as a starting point. Hugs, Pat
If you read the standard list of RA symptoms, flu-like symptoms is definitely on the list. I do get occasional bouts of nausea, diarrea, dizziness, fatigue, rapid heart rate, and a light headed...mailaise type feeling. It's hard to know if it's from the RA or the meds. It can be very frustrating...you just feel sick, not necessarily awful, but it can drag on and on and sap your energy. I also occasionally get back pain flares that tend to migrate down my legs. So, for me, a flare is not always, in fact recently rather rarely, about swelling and joint pain.
Alan
My first symptom with a flare is often nausea first. I will usually feel that way and then it turns into a flare. I use it as a warning sign to back off activities a bit.
I've had flares where just my whole body hurts and this I assume is FM. Then I have flares where my joints feel hot and swollen and this I guess is RA. I always get fatigue with a bad flare to the point that I feel like I'm inches away from dying where even breathing is exhausting. Now with the anemia and the nerve problems, the fatigue is really unbearable. I didn't think you could have such deep levels of it.
He diagnosed me with RA, positive RF, high CRP, high ESR and negative on