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Hear My RA Interview on KISS FM! Plus Updates & Coupons
Over the last two weeks, I haven’t been able to write very much because of 2 roadblocks: Do you have RA in your shoulder? Lately, I’ve just cried and lay with heat or ice on mine. Some days, I couldn’t...
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Author Seeks to Find Justice by Helping Others
I’m so lucky to live about an hour from Disneyworld. No, I don’t go park hopping! But, we can go meet people who come to Orlando for business or pleasure. Recently, Katie Beth and I drove over to meet...
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The Now-I-Understand Abbott Suit for Rheumatoid Arthritis
What’s the one thing I’ve said more than anything else over the last five years? “No one understands.” I sigh it quietly. I mutter it under my breath. I exclaim it loudly in frustration. I struggle to...
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Response to An Identity Crisis for RA by Dr. R. Franklin Adams
Recently, I read an article in The Rheumatologist (preceding a new PR campaign by the American College of Rheumatology), “An Identity Crisis for RA: A few suggestions to bring rheumatic disease the...
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Will Venus Williams’ Sjögren’s Syndrome Help RA?
We had an interesting conversation on Facebook yesterday about the Venus Williams’ Sjögren’s syndrome diagnosis (actually 5 of them by day’s end). Some were wondering whether the diagnosis of another...
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Happy Birthday #Rheum for World Arthritis Day
Last October 12, I was in New Jersey in on a WEGO Health panel of health activists. But before I got on the plane, I wrote a blog post to share my concept of a #Rheum community online for people...
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When Should People Living with Rheumatoid Disease Use a Wheelchair?
Or give in to using a cane? Or pain medication? Or a handicapped tag? There was an interesting discussion about wheelchairs and canes on my Facebook post yesterday. At the same time, there were a few...
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We Refuse to Be Mislabeled: Updating Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) to Rheumatoid...
Three years ago, I saw Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) patients insisting that the name of the disease needed to be changed. They argued that until the “a” word is removed from the name, confusion about the...
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Rheumatoid Arthritis Awareness Is about Medical Care, Not Sympathy
My Bear had an appointment to see his terrific pediatrician today again about his swollen finger joints. She was home with a cold, but we waited an hour to see an alternate. The fellow didn’t seem to...
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Laura’s CVS Commercial with Kelly’s CVS and the “a” Word
Once upon a time, a family switched insurance companies. Mother went to Target to pickup groceries methotrexate with a $10 coupon. When she went to the counter to pay, the insurance had “denied”...
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What’s the Big Deal about Rheumatoid Disease?
Just how big of a deal is this disease? I suppose the fact that I’ve written several hundred pages about it is a clue to my opinion. Yet, most of those articles were written with intentional restraint,...
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5 Reasons Rheumatoid Disease Is a Better Term than Rheumatoid Arthritis
The first blog post of this year told how I’ve come to prefer the term Rheumatoid Disease to Rheumatoid Arthritis. The response? Within 2 days in Facebook-land, there were 294 Shares, 583 Likes, and...
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The Confusion of a Smile
If you have RA, you’ll probably just nod your head as I share this private experience. If not, you may just scratch you head: huh? It’s all good, right? Well, mostly… I mean, a lot of living with RA is...
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Consumer Reports Absurd Best Buy Rheumatoid Arthritis Drug List
RESPONSE TO Consumer Reports Health Best Buy Drugs; Evaluating Prescription Drugs Used to Treat the Symptoms of Rheumatoid Arthritis: The Biologics Warrior to Washington: Next week, I’m going to D.C....
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Aftermath of the FDA Vote on Pfizer’s RA JAK Inhibitor, Tofacitinib
After the tofacitinib FDA hearing, the votes are in, false perceptions persist, and patients still need relief. Some estimate that tofacitinib could be approved by the US FDA within a few months after...
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20 Replies to Things Not to Say to a Rheumatoid Patient
Every day, I talk with several Rheumatoid patients, and hear from many more. Today’s post is in response to a request from one dear reader about one of the most popular posts on the blog, 20 Things Not...
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Mind-boggling! – Aftermath of Tofacitinib FDA Hearing Part 2
After the FDA Arthritis Advisory Committee (AAC) hearing earlier this month for Pfizer’s new oral treatment for RA, tofacitinib, we looked at the four distinct votes of the AAC and some of the ways...
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The Powerful Health Care Role No One Really Wants: Being a Patient
The valuable knowledge of patients with diseases like RA Today, Katie Beth and I flew home from San Francisco where I spoke three times this week: There was a presentation at about the value of patient...
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Woman’s Day RA Is Destructive, but Phil & Venus Have Cred
In 2009, I first encountered something I called “the PR problem” with RA. For three years, I’ve disagreed with Woman’s Day magazine over whether the Woman’s Day version of RA is correct. On the blog,...
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What RA Is Like: Heavy Armor Hindered Medieval Warriors
Researchers at Leeds in the UK studied how medieval soldiers were affected by the weight of the armor (approximately 40-50 kg or 80-90 lbs). Researchers wore replicas of European armor while monitoring...
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