BRASS Study stories

Story 1- Beginning years with rheumatoid arthritis

Learning I had rheumatoid arthritis –My rheumatoid arthritis came on quickly 20 years ago when I was fifty-one. It was frightening. I could barely take myself to the bathroom.

I worried about what the future would hold and whether I would be able to continue to work. For years I took pride in the fact that I was never out sick a day at work, and now I couldn’t function. One of my first thoughts was, “How am I going to be able to send my children to college?” My husband and I both needed to work to make ends meet.

My primary care physician diagnosed me as having polymyalgia rheumatica (PMR), an inflammatory disorder that causes widespread muscle aching and stiffness that usually disappears in a couple of years. I was put on Prednisone and later had a series of Gold shots. But when my symptoms didn’t disappear, and I wasn’t doing well, I decided to go to the doctor my son was seeing at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. My son was diagnosed with RA as a freshman in college, even before I was diagnosed. I did much better with the doctors at the Brigham and Women’s.

Eventually, I went back to work and credit the medications for that. I worked until I was over 62 at which point I decided I had worked long enough. Stopping was not due to my RA. I have had to replace three joints over the period of 2000 to 2002 and am doing really well at age 71.

I take Humira and also Ibuprofen, folic acid and Methotrexate.I consider myself lucky to be born at a time when they are making so many advances in RA treatments and the research continues. I can remember how difficult it was early on. There were the times my husband and I had to help my son to just take a sip of water he was so incapacitated from RA. My son is now doing well and on medications. He is the father of two beautiful children and his wife is a doctor. He is a stay at home dad. My hope is that RA is not passed on to his children or that medicine finds a cure.