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Services for people with rheumatoid arthritis

Awareness and reaction of family and friends

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Transcript

SPEAKER 1:

It’s taken me a long time to tell my family and friends, to be honest, although I’ve been experiencing it for a long time. In recent years I’ve told my mother, even though I’ve had it for about 5/6 years; obviously I didn't want her to get worried about it. I haven’t really said anything to my friends, to be honest. I don't know why but I guess that’s the way it’s been - so it’s taken me a long time.

SPEAKER 2:

With friends and people I worked with, it was a large degree of ignorance because actually there’s not an awful lot of information out there on what rheumatoid arthritis means.

SPEAKER 3:

My family life was very difficult and my children and my husband all suffered a lot. My daughter, even though she was only 9, was having to help me get dressed nearly every morning because I couldn't even do that myself and even now (when I’m much better) we don’t have a normal family life; everything revolves around ‘can mum manage to do this if we get there? .. can she walk around the park with us?’ and usually the answer is ‘no’.

SPEAKER 4:

I didn't know what rheumatoid arthritis was; I thought, like most people do, I just associated it with old people. I didn't really know how serious it can be, I didn't know how much pain it would cause or damage; you just think ‘arthritis; old people’ and it’s just got the stigma attached to it. My mum didn't have a clue what rheumatoid arthritis was, she just, I think, like everyone else, she’d heard of it but you just think of old people, you just think ‘how can a 16 year old have rheumatoid arthritis, it just isn’t possible’. I think people need to understand that it’s a serious illness and it affects people of all ages and it’s not the same as osteo-arthritis and people often get it confused, they don’t hear the ‘rheumatoid’, they just hear ‘arthritis’ and assume it’s not very serious and it’s not really going to make a huge impact on your life but it does. I didn't tell my friends at first and in fact I didn't tell my friends until I was at university, so no-one knew I had it, if I was limping or missing school I’d say ‘oh, I’ve hurt myself, I’ve hurt my ankle’ because I felt like it was a bad thing to have; that people would think ‘oh, she’s old and decrepit because she’s got arthritis’, because people don’t understand it and they don’t think of it as a serious illness; they think it’s just creaky joints.

Return to Services for people with rheumatoid arthritis: accompanying videos.