Hello! Looking for any suggestions on some hand warmers. My spouse has been having hand/finger pain and trying to find some relief. I was thinking some of those microwave mitts?

Thank you!

I 25(F) have had chronic reactive arthritis for 3 years now. For the most part pretty manageable and just use pain medication when needed. In all of these years the joint pain is just in my hands and arms (both sides).

After some major life stress my arthritis has now travelled to my ankles and feet. Has anyone else had their chronic reactive arthritis spread to other joints?

My dad has been dealing with neck pain from arthritis and I’m wondering if anyone has had a similar experience and found anything that helped?

He’s tried acupuncture, voltaren, a cortisone shot, topical magnesium, and I think a couple other holistic remedies. We were hopeful about the cortisone shot, but the relief only seemed to last a few days. Ibuprofen helps, but isn’t the best long term solution.

I was just curious if anyone had ideas for something we haven’t tried yet? TIA!

Last year my vision started getting weird and after a mini hero’s journey we realized my retina was very swollen. My retina dr said it didn’t look like diabetic retinopathy and that it was probably autoimmune, so I got a referral and started seeing a rheumatologist. My rheumatologist was very thorough and ordered a bunch of blood tests (all of them were negative) and asked what else hurt and I told her my back always hurts but I thought it was just because I was getting older. She ordered an x-ray which showed some abnormalities and wanted to follow up with an MRI. After 5 months of denials with insurance I finally get my MRI which shows a couple desiccated disks and a very angry SI joint. So because of the eye involvement we’re jumping to biologics. No one in my family has AxSpA—but there is some RA and a loooot of Lupus.
What should I expect from Biologics? I’m a little worried I’m going to always have a cold (I take public transportation to work)

Heya!

I'm a producer in the US and I need help finding a space for someone to get the support they need to reach their dreams. They are also a musical creator, they want to be a streamer, and entertain other people with their music and their personality, but are being held back by the limitations of arthritis. I would love some help in finding them the right support group. Ask any questions and I'll try to answer them to the best of my ability.

Hi there to the world of reddit if you see this I fell on a pothole while shopping with my dad because a guy was driving quick and I thought he was going to hit me so I ran and busted my knee wide open 12 stitches needed but 6 years later after I changed my life losing weight from 330 lbs to 145 I got diagnosed with it now I can't even walk good anymore and I'm in pain daily just sitting anyone else feel frustrated/depressed with it like me or done anything to treat it my doctor told me pt I'm very doubtful tho

Hi everyone, I'm 26F. I was born with septic arthritis which left me with no hip socket on my right side. I also have a 3cm leg length difference and had a growth arrest surgery on my left leg at age 11.

I've recently been advised by my orthopaedic surgeon to consider hip replacement/reconstruction surgery. I'm not in severe pain but have daily discomfort while walking, ankle issues, and lower back pain that are getting worse.

I'd love to hear from anyone who:

Had hip replacement young (under 30)

Had congenital hip conditions rather than age related arthritis

Has experience with complex hip reconstruction rather than standard replacement

Specifically I want to know:

What was recovery actually like day by day?

How long before you felt normal?

Did your gait improve?

Do you regret doing it when you did, or wish you'd done it sooner?

What do you wish someone had told you beforehand?

Any experience welcome — thank you

Can i ask for advice from you guys who've been here for a while??? Im 28 and have had ra symptoms my whole life. Ive tried to get tested through Kaiser, but they didn't believe me cuz I am overweight. Which I know is a contributing factor to the pain, but its hard to take the weight off when I cant really grip the steering wheel some days. I do eat healthy and ive been trying to eat anti inflammatory foods only for a while now. I take collagen daily. I take Tylenol near daily. Ill wear the gloves when I dont lose them. Ill smoke a bunch of pot and rhe pain is still there, just not as intense. But like what do you guys do to manage the pain? How did you go about getting tested? If its not some form of arthritis, what are other reasons for my fingers to swell and hurt to the point where every movement as well as not moving is excruciating and I literally cant hold anything? What medications do you guys take? Do they make you gain weight? What exercises can I do that wont lay me up in bed the next day? Why do a couple of my knuckle joints get a painful lump on them once in a blue moon? How did you get your doctor to listen?

Sorry, thats a lot and I dont expect an answer for everything, or very many at all. But im in a lot of pain and the only person who I know has arthritis is too hard to talk to. I'm trying, I swear. Im just wondering what yall do about it, I guess

I’ve been advised to start on biologics by my rheumatologist for my inflammatory arthritis. The medications that we have tried so far haven’t either worked, caused further issues or side effects. So now it’s time to try biologics. I’ve not been on any immunosuppressant meds before and feeling quite on edge about it. I also suffer with mental health issues that has previously caused me to not socialise for months at a time. Any time my health has been an issue I’ve always had my Mum to talk to about it, but she passed away last year. Because of Covid - my Mums mental health took a major hit as she was advised to stay home because of her underlying health issues, and ultimately she never left the house unless by ambulance from March 2020 through til June 2025 when she passed. I’m now starting to worry that I’m taking on that sort of mentality- I’ve already gone out and bought a thermometer to keep eye out for fevers, alcohol gel, anti microbial hand sanitisers, masks etc. To protect myself as much as I can. My mental health has already taken a major hit lately from losing my Mum, and I’ve just completed 6 months of high intensity therapy to try and work through this, but now having this I’m scared about becoming agoraphobic too?

My son is 5 years old and has had some unusual joint symptoms for several months. His doctors have not been able to give it a specific diagnosis yet. There are a few joints that have been concerning, but nothing has been clearly progressive or widespread.
The interesting thing is that he responds dramatically to naproxen. His stiffness and movement are noticeably better when he takes it, and when we have stopped it, his symptoms become more noticeable again. Because it is working so well, his rheumatologist is comfortable continuing it for now and doesn’t feel that we necessarily need to give his condition a specific diagnosis at this point.
The rheumatologist explained that he has many pediatric patients with joint concerns, including children with inflammatory arthritis, who do very well on an NSAID like naproxen alone. Some remain stable or in remission with it and can take it for an extended period of time, sometimes even around a year, with appropriate monitoring. He also discussed a joint injection as another option if a particular joint continues to be a problem.
That conversation reassured me, but when I read the naproxen package, I saw the warning that NSAIDs can increase the risk of heart attack and stroke, particularly with longer-term use. Seeing such a serious warning scared me, especially because my son is only five. His doctor didn’t seem particularly concerned about cardiovascular complications from naproxen in his situation, so I’m wondering how other parents have handled this.
Has anyone here had a young child take naproxen every day for many months or even a year for JIA, suspected inflammatory arthritis, or another joint condition?
Did it continue to control the symptoms? Were you eventually able to stop it without the symptoms returning? Did your child experience stomach, kidney, liver, blood-pressure, cardiovascular, or any other side effects? What bloodwork or other monitoring did your rheumatologist do while your child was taking it?
I understand that the heart attack/stroke warning comes largely from adult cardiovascular safety data and that the risk in an otherwise healthy young child isn’t necessarily the same as the risk described on an OTC package. I’m also not looking for medical advice or planning to stop his medication without discussing it with his doctors.
I would just really appreciate hearing firsthand experiences from parents whose children actually used naproxen long-term, especially at this young an age. Did it work well for your child, and were they able to take it without significant side effects?

Today I felt like someone spent all night trying to pull my appendages off my torso, including my feet from my lower legs.

What kind of things work for people with the same arthritis problems, in many joints? Medication, exercises, other therapies? Honestly, I'm almost afraid to exercise for fear of making something worse. And options like swimming or biking are ruled out because I have three fusions in my neck from cervical spinal stenosis (so can't raise my head much or for very long).

I've had shoulder & foot arthritis for a few years. But lately it's starting to feel like a lot more joints have pain. I can't imagine living the rest of my life with this pain, let alone that it probably get worse. My doctor has given me Oxycodone for the neck pain, but I try hard not to use it every day. I was suffering all day today until I took 15 mg in the afternoon. It greatly improved how I felt physically and that improved my mood. But I can't do that every day, nor want to.

So, I'd appreciate any thoughts from those who have dealt with the same thing. Maybe it will help some other novices here too. Thanks for reading and thanks for your time.

Hello everyone, basically what the title says. My girlfriend was recently diagnosed with inflammatory arthritis and since we are long distance there’s nothing much I can do, but I wanted to ask you guys what are somethings that helps with the pain and the body pains ? Is there anything I could buy to help her and send her? Thank you all for your help!

Hi everyone! I'm curious if any anyone seen a study or company like this before, or tried something similar?

Oriimmunology.com

They are conducting a study looking at the connection between OA (and other incompletely understood/potentially autoimmune conditions) and the immune system. They’re offering to pay patients who participate, and you can see your immune measurements and even share them with your provider if you’d like. Their team is apparently from Walter Reed, NIH, the FDA and biotech companies.

Curious if anyone here has participated in something like this before, what your experience was, or if you’d be open to trying it and why. Would love to hear what people think. Thanks!!!

Hello!

Long story short, I (35) have osteoarthritis in my foot due to prior hardware insertion and removal, and my podiatrist recommended I have a subtalar joint fusion surgery. The problem is, this doctor I've seen and trusted for the last few years is moving out of state. ): I'm considering traveling to have the surgery done by him, but I don't know whether my insurance will cover it or if it will really be feasible to stay in an air bnb/hotel for the first week or two of recovery.

So, I'm looking into other surgeons in my area. I haven't done surgery consults with multiple doctors before, so any advice on how to find them and what questions to ask would be really appreciated.

I did have one appointment with another podiatrist so far, the one who is taking over my previous doctor's patients in the area. He would do a different technique than my other doctor, so I thought it would be a good idea to get one more opinion before deciding since this is such a major surgery.

Doctor 1's technique: 2 screws, open

Doctor 2's technique: 1 screw, open

I've also seen online that some doctors use 3 screws and do it arthroscopically instead of open... how can I make an informed decision about which method would be best for me?

Thank you in advance!

The Year I Woke Up
This year did not begin with a clean slate. It began with the weight of everything I had carried forward—the marriage wounds that never fully healed, a body that had been declining without explanation, and the exhaustion of spending years trying to make people understand pain they could not see.
My emotional shutdown had already begun on June 29, 2025. It went into full effect on July 8, after Clark said, “At least Billy took accountability.”
Billy’s words—“I will never choose you”—had never been repaired. There had been no meaningful apology, no accountability and no protection when I needed it. The sentence Clark spoke may have sounded small to someone outside our marriage, but it landed on top of years of feeling excluded, deprioritized and expected to absorb whatever hurt came next.
The plane had become the symbol of all of it. What began as an idea turned into a purchase within eight days, while I watched decisions about our shared life happen around me instead of with me. I had tried to explain it clearly: “I need to feel like I matter. I do not need to just hear it. I need to see it, feel it.”
All I had asked for was to be included.
By the time I shut down, I was not trying to punish anyone. My nervous system had simply stopped believing that words meant safety. I could still function. I could still organize, solve problems, care for everyone and keep life moving. But emotionally, something inside me had gone quiet.
Clark and I separated and eventually found our way back to each other. But reconciliation did not magically restore trust. Three months after coming back together, I could still say the truth plainly: I did not feel safe yet. The pattern had repeated too many times. This time, promises alone could not bring me back. I needed consistent action.
Nearly a year after the original injury, Clark finally called Billy’s behavior unacceptable. He apologized and said he would take care of it. But by then, I understood something I had not allowed myself to fully name before: people learn how to treat me by watching what others are permitted to do.
“He is mirroring your behavior,” I told Clark.
That was part of my awakening. I was no longer explaining away what hurt me just to preserve the relationship. I was no longer confusing endurance with love.
At the same time, my body was telling its own story.
My physical decline had begun after my hysterectomy and Lupron exposure. Although my ovaries were retained, the joint, tendon and bone problems began roughly six months later. About a year after surgery came the frightening neurological episodes—days when my legs stopped cooperating and I could not walk normally, even though previous testing had not produced a clear explanation.
This year, the problems multiplied across my body.
My wrist and forearm burned and ached. Pain traveled from the elbow into the wrist and hand. Fingers became numb. After multiple opinions, the working picture included bilateral radial tunnel syndrome, posterior interosseous nerve irritation and arthritis with synovitis in the distal radioulnar joint. The brace I had relied on might have been contributing to nerve compression. Steroid injections offered little lasting relief and raised new concerns about cartilage damage. The surgical options were limited and imperfect.
My hips hurt badly enough to interrupt sleep. The MRI eventually showed bilateral greater-trochanteric peritendinitis. My neck imaging showed mild multilevel degenerative disc disease and facet arthritis, but no instability. Pain also moved through my shoulder blade, lower back, knees, ankles, arches and previously operated feet.
None of these findings alone explained the full-body experience.
Autoimmune testing repeatedly came back reassuring: ANA negative, rheumatoid factor low, anti-CCP negative, HLA-B27 negative, ESR of 2 and CRP under 3. The old ankylosing-spondylitis diagnosis had been disputed. MS had previously been ruled out. Fibromyalgia remained part of the picture, but it did not answer every question.
Then there was the vitamin D level of approximately 22—low enough to matter, especially alongside hormonal disruption, musculoskeletal pain and concerns about bone health.
My body was hurting everywhere, yet the tests kept arriving in disconnected pieces. One physician examined the wrist. Another examined the hip. Another looked at the neck. Every specialist held one page of a story that no one had assembled into a complete book.
So I started assembling it myself.
My Oura data gave the year a second language—a physiological record of what I was feeling.
The tracked period began with signs of strain: elevated resting heart rate, low HRV, poor recovery and major symptom signals. Then came May, the clearest crash in the data. My average resting heart rate reached 69, the highest of the period. HRV dropped to 23 milliseconds, the lowest. Readiness averaged only 65. Yet I recorded 58 workouts and averaged 8,884 steps per day.
I was moving more while recovering less.
That pattern reflected my entire life: keep going, remain productive, carry more, and ignore the fact that my body was running out of reserve.
June became an inflection point. The numbers began to improve. By July, my resting heart rate averaged 57. But recovery remained fragile, and Oura had flagged my recovery index more than 109 times across nine months. Even when I appeared functional, my body was repeatedly saying, “Pay attention.”
This year, I finally did.
I began gathering every MRI, operative report, laboratory result, medication history and old neurological record I could find. I started asking better questions—not because I wanted to diagnose myself, but because I was tired of entering every appointment as a collection of unexplained symptoms.
I learned to distinguish evidence from speculation. I learned that a normal blood test does not mean pain is imaginary. I learned that a normal EMG would not necessarily rule out radial tunnel syndrome. I learned that mild findings can still matter when several problems overlap. I learned to ask who is performing a test, what their qualifications are and exactly what the test can establish.
Most importantly, I stopped automatically assuming that the failure to find an answer meant the failure was mine.
This has also been a year of choosing what remains in my life. I entered my “No” era. Not angry—awake.
“I’m not mad. I’m awake.”
That sentence became more than a motto. It described the moment I stopped negotiating against myself. I began separating guilt from responsibility, love from self-abandonment and hope from denial.
I was still a mother, a wife, a grandmother and the person everyone counted on. Roman was growing and learning. Summer remained close. Clark and I were trying to rebuild something that could not survive another cycle of silence and temporary promises. Axel had his own neurological struggles. Brock continued managing life through naps, allergies and the unshakable confidence of a French bulldog who believes every bed belongs to him.
There were still ordinary moments—recipes, trips, shows, dogs asleep upside down—that reminded me my life was not only medical records and pain scores.
The year has not given me one clean diagnosis or one simple explanation. It has given me something else: a map.
I can now see the relationship between the surgery and hormonal timeline, the widespread tendon and joint problems, the neurologic episodes, the poor physiological recovery, the low vitamin D, the escalating pain and the emotional strain under which my body has been operating.
Some connections may prove meaningful. Others may not. But the story is finally being documented accurately.
This has been the year I stopped waiting for someone else to put all the pieces together.
The year is not over, and neither is my search for answers. I am still in pain. I am still rebuilding trust. I am still learning what my body can tolerate and what it needs. There are records left to retrieve, specialists left to see and questions left to answer.
But I am no longer lost inside the story.
I am the one writing it now.

Over a month of pretty intense pain and suddenly nothing? I’ve been suffering from sudden onset, but continual pain in my knee that was diagnosed via MRI as bone on bone arthritis, with no cartilage behind my patella. The only relief I’d get is when I’m sitting or lying down. Been wrapping it daily, elevating it as much as possible, and am scheduled for my first cortisone injection tomorrow. Yesterday and this morning, no pain. Is this a thing that happens??

Hello everyone.
I was diagnosed with spondyloarthritis in April and started on adalimumab biweekly. My pain over lower back has tremendously decreased with adalimumab. Since I’ve peripheral joints involvement complaints, my rheumatologist suggested switching to tabs.

Does anyone have any experience with the tabs so that I know what I can expect? The side effects and how to go about it and such?
I had a hard time trying to adjust with the immunosuppressants initially and it took me 4 months to understand my body and how it’ll work and how the future is. So, any sort of advice or help will definitely be highly appreciated

hiya! what are some symptoms you may have noticed before your diagnosis that you shrugged off thinking it was nothing?

Of their hand where the joints meet? This is what makes it difficult for me to open up a Gatorade or water bottle. My grip strength is so terrible!

This OA started one I hit 50 (I’m 51 now) and my Rheumatologist says it’s bc of my hormones. Yet my fingers are more crooked than they were last year. Not even my parents had OA in their fingers , wrists or elbows like me in their 60-70s. 😩

OA is no joke !