When a knee flare first starts it feels like I’m out of joint slightly, there is mild pain and some pressure. Then as it progresses the pain becomes constant and it’s as if my knee is broken, it won’t bend correctly, there is lots of pressure in the wrong directions, it feels like it’s constantly being twisted the wrong way. Then when the flare is full on it feels like my knee is being sawed through very slowly, the saw never finishing the job but just going back and forth ripping out bits of me. Now add my other knee, an ankle, a few toes, both elbows, a shoulder, in around my collar bone, a hip, both wrists, both thumbs and most of my fingers. All these parts of me being attacked by an invisible saw. Now add my vocal cords (yes RA can affect the voice) so even as I cry out because I can’t move and the pain is so bad and I need help my voice fails so I just wait, minutes seem like hours, until my husband, Bob, checks on me again. I take more pain pills but they can’t touch this pain and I’m already over the maximum dose. I desperately want to blow my nose because I’ve been crying but I can’t move my arms so Bob has to hold a tissue up for me and it’s clumsy and I get goo all over my face and I just want to die. I’m thirsty but I’m afraid if I drink I’ll have to use the bathroom so I don’t. I feel that if I could just shift my body slightly on the bed I would feel a little relief but even though I know it won’t work my mind torments me, sure that if I could just lie a little more on one side I would feel less pain. Finally I try to move, just to roll onto my side but I can’t and finally I give up. I wake up Bob and he moves me and props pillows but just a few seconds on my side and my shoulder makes me start screaming in pain. Bob puts me back and I try to stay quiet because I know how badly he is feeling for me and how tired he is and it is still several hours to go before dawn comes and we can leave to the doctor. My nose itches but I can’t scratch it. The feeling of helplessness becomes so overwhelming I start to weep and Bob has to come to the rescue because I start choking on my own tears. He props me up more and talks to me quietly until I calm down. I make him promise me that if the new drug doesn’t work he will let me go. He gets upset and tells me the drug will work but I have to know that he won’t hold me here if my body stays this way and nothing works. Then I laugh and tell him that there’s not much to worry about when I can’t even blow my own nose.

So thats it. Several hours later I was given a shot of Depo Medrol which is a steroid and also put on a 20mg maintenance dose of another steroid, prednisone. The dangerous side effects of these drugs were out weighed by the damage that RA was doing to me. By that night I could roll onto my side and get off the toilet by myself and by the next morning I went back to work. I realized then that everything that had ever seemed hard or unfair paled in comparison to a bad RA flare. People that don’t have RA say it causes stiffness and pain. Those words seem awfully benign to what really happens. The stiffness is incredible, it’s like something wraps you in invisible packing tape during the night. It’s not just morning stiffness either, for me it was like a heavy fog, lifting slightly in the middle of the day only to roll in again by late afternoon. And the pain…I didn’t know they made pain like that. The words ‘Rheumatoid Arthritis’ should put the same fear of God into people like the word ‘Cancer’ does, but it doesn’t. People hear Rheumatoid Arthritis and they think it’s like having the ache and stiffness you get when you worked out too long doing something your body wasn’t used to. It couldn’t be further from the truth.

Oscar