Surprisingly, stronger opioids were the worst at relieving pain in a new multi-study analysis. Despite concerns about safety and addiction, lots of people with osteoarthritis (OA) take opioids to address their chronic pain. A recent study in Sweden, for example, revealed that one in four patients with OA had been prescribed an opioid in the previous year — despite the fact that the drugs aren’t on the list of recommended treatments except in extreme circumstances…
New data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggests that arthritis might be a leading cause of chronic pain in the U.S. Chronic pain can occur for many reasons: migraines, reproductive-related health issues (such as endometriosis or fibroids), advanced cancer, an injury, and so on. But if you had to place a bet on the root cause for the most chronic pain patients, arthritis would be a pretty good guess. That’s the…
“This may have implications for management decisions beyond treating to disease activity targets alone.” Pain and inflammation often go hand in hand, especially for people with inflammatory conditions like rheumatoid arthritis (RA). So it logically follows that when inflammatory markers decrease, less pain would follow. But according to a new study that isn’t always the case. The study, which was presented at the 2019 2019 American College of Rheumatology/Association of Rheumatology Health Professionals Annual Meeting…
Female patients were much more likely to have a dual diagnosis. Small studies have suggested an overlap between spondyloarthritis (SpA) and fibromyalgia, but now a larger meta-analysis confirms it: About 17 percent of SpA patients also have fibromyalgia, compared to 2 to 8 percent of the general population that has fibromyalgia. Click Here to Visit the Store and find Much More…. These findings, which were based on an analysis of 15 earlier observational trials, were…
And a few factors seemed to be responsible, including being obese and also having fibromyalgia. When most people think about rheumatoid arthritis (RA), they focus on joint pain, swelling, and stiffness. While those issues are certainly common, they tend to co-exist with another symptom — overwhelming fatigue — that can be harder for friends and family to understand. Click Here to Visit the Store and find Much More…. Fatigue is more than being a little…
‘Art enables me to face my body and my life with courage.’ Chronic 24/7 pain, fatigue, swelling, and a host of other symptoms are all part of my journey with rheumatoid arthritis, axial spondyloarthritis, osteoarthritis, fibromyalgia, and other chronic conditions I’ve been living with for years. I’ve loved drawing since I was a child, and after my RA diagnosis in 2011, I started to create art more regularly. As my diseases progressed and multiplied, my…
No matter who you talk to in the chronic pain, arthritis, and musculoskeletal disease community — patients, clinicians, researchers, public health experts — medical marijuana is controversial. Is it safe? Is it effective for treating pain and inflammation? Should it be legal? While more clinical trials are sorely needed to understand the benefits and side effects of using medical marijuana to treat conditions like arthritis, it’s important to understand how patients think about and use…
Methotrexate (MTX) is considered a “first-line” therapy for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and is also used to treat psoriatic arthritis (PsA). But despite the well-known benefits of helping to reduce symptoms and prevent disease progression, methotrexate has a very mixed reputation among arthritis patients. Perhaps because MTX is so commonly prescribed, many inflammatory arthritis patients start to worry about whether or not they’ll have to take it almost as soon as they’re diagnosed. “For anyone with…
One of the main reasons people with arthritis visit the rheumatologist frequently — every three months is common among patients with inflammatory arthritis — is for doctors and patients to assess how arthritis patients are managing their disease. Typical check-ins may include a doctor’s physical exam and assessment as well as reviewing the results of blood tests and imaging tests. What’s also critical at these visits is something arthritis researchers and doctors call PROs, or…
Fibromyalgia and lupus are both chronic diseases with no cure, can both cause some similar symptoms, and can both take a long time to get the right diagnosis. But fibromyalgia — often called fibro — and lupus are two very distinct health conditions with very different causes and treatments, despite having some features in common. Lupus is an autoimmune disorder that involves widespread inflammation and impacts many organs throughout the body. Fibromyalgia a disorder that…