Comments on: How Do You Deal With The Fatigue?

By: Lisa

Lisa — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 20:41:00 +0000

This is a tough issue. The doctor says “exercise and you will feel better. The pain will even ease with exercise.” But it is not that simple. The pain eases in my knees and hips while I’m working out, but usually flares up worse everywhere else. And the fatigue… I had mono in the 10th grade. It’s a lot like that. I used to be a night owl and never took naps. Now it’s not uncommon to sleep 10 hours and take a nap. If I sit still totally unoccupied for more than a few minutes I doze. And I find that the more “normal” stuff I do in a given day, the worse I feel the next day. And it builds up. By the weekend I’m usually exhausted and miserable. And it’s not as if I’m running marathons each day.

By: Ruca

Ruca — Sun, 25 Nov 2012 17:29:48 +0000

Honestly the best thing for me is to not struggle so much against it. I take multiple minisleeps as often as I need them. Sometimes I feel its like a panic attack, the more you fight it the worse it will get.

So if I can, I just give my body what it wants.

By: ronnocs

ronnocs — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 22:29:57 +0000

Really interested I what you’ve said. I did three things when first diagnosed:
1 Gave up full contact martial art
2 Lost around 40lbs
3 Took up yoga
Not taking anything for RA (though this is likely to change v soon), and managing my disease, rather than letting it manage me.
Fatigue is harder to explain to fiends an family than the swelling and pain.

By: Annette

Annette — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 14:12:19 +0000

There’s a book I read 20 years ago called The Arthritis Exercise Book by Semyon Krewer. You can get it for $1 or so at abebooks.com second hand.

He wrote the book back when you were often confined to bed if your RA was bad and he outlines a lot of exercises that take very small effort but they do make your muscles stronger. He used them to keep some muscle tone so that when he improved he could get up and move around better. So you can do these exercises in bed.

Gradually he covers the whole body

He’s pretty chatty and was a nuclear physicist I think. His physio collaborated.

Annette

By: Dr Irwin Lim

Dr Irwin Lim — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 11:50:51 +0000

Fatigue is really hard to deal with as a physician as well. It’s such a common complaint from all, not just rheumatoid patients.

It’s hard to explain why.

What I’ve become aware of as I become more attuned to listening to my patients, and as I read patient’s experiences on blogs, etc, is that it is a huge problem.

I don’t have an easy answer but I thought I would share some initial thoughts. Thanks to RA Guy for posting these.