Home Better Living For Our Family & Friends Significant Other Spot

Welcome to the Significant Other Spot at Arthritis Insight. I'm Rosie. I hope you'll look through Arthritis Insight and visit this column often; because it's for you. This Spot is for partners, friends, spouses, parents, siblings, kids and anyone with a close relationship with an arthritic.

Significant Others (S.O.'s) are special people with a special outlook. This S.O. Spot exists to welcome you to share fully in the life of your gimp and to connect with others. Welcome! Please feel free to write to me at Rosie@arthritisinsight.com to ask questions, make comments, and tell me what you want in your Spot.

Scary Stuff

It's about two and a half weeks before Halloween and I hope the S.O.'s are over the scare. Which scare? The one about addicting medications. Much of it is subliminal.

Did you go check out the gimp meds.? Did you find any of the Rush Limbaugh variety? -OxyContin, Vicodin, Lorcet There are meds that are appropriate for short term relief after surgery, and others that are for longer term use. -Percocet, Darvocet

When arthritis has caused damage -not uncommon- pain therapy is called for. Properly supervised and administered, these meds. are not a problem. They come in long acting - Duragesic- and fast acting breakthrough -Actiq- types. These medications, like all medications, can be life saving and give sufferers a quality of life not possible without them.

Getting drugs of any kind off the street is dangerous and illegal. But not any more expensive than some of the newer arthritis drugs -Enbrel, Remicade, Kineret Thank Heavens for the insurance companies that will provide these -non-addictive- medications.

Most of the drugs used for the treatment of arthritis are not addicting -Plaquinel, Prednisone, Arava, etc.- because they aren't opiate kinds. There really isn't a whole lot to be scared of - death, taxes.

Try not to make the mistake of confusing subliminal messages with sublingual medications -Vitamin B6 and nitroglycerin.

But if you, as a dedicated S.O., are anxious about the meds your Gimp is on, you can ask your doctor for anti-anxiety meds - Xanax, Ativan, Valium. Be sure to take as prescribed, because these can be addictive.

I'm pulling for you! No fear!

Regards to you and yours from Rosie

SOS Archives:

Moderately Speaking
Weather Blues.
D.A.S.
Gimp Unity
If I knew then...
Healing Humor
Arthritis TV
Managing Multiples
Not Yet...
Navigational Aid
Are You Tree'd?
Gimp Crafts
A Knotty Problem
Off to the Office
Life as a Platypus
Kinds of Support
Depression or Undertreated Pain?
The 'In Spite of' People
Thanks, But No Thanks
Tricked by Near Normal
Distract Me, Please
The Best of Times, The Worst of Times
Aargh, Those Dratted Braces
Overprotectiveness and Insecurity
Guilty Parents and Compassionate Kids
Personal Pain?
Scared of the Genes
The Tyranny of Expectations
Relationship Issues
Paget's Disease
Rheumatoid Arthritis
Fibromyalgia
Osteoarthritis
Polymyalgia Rheumatica
Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy
D.I.S.H.
Psoriatic Arthritis
Palindromic Arthritis
Reactive Arthritis
Anklosing Spondylitis
Women's Bones
Clueage for Those Who Don't "Get It"
Dealing with Unwelcome Surprises
Talent Wins!
Arthur is a Shape-Shifter
Someone to Watch Over Me
Love/Hate Relationship with a Wheelchair
Play as Therapy
Arthritis Wishes
What to Give Your Gimp
Fads and Flim-Flams
Companion Animals
Recharge Time
Stubborn Gimps
Co-Workers: To Tell The Truth?
More Pain and Depression
OW! That's Gotta Hurt!
What Is In Those Brown Plastic Bottles?
Before The Diagnosis

Rosie Shiver
Page last updated on October 14, 2003