RA - from my viewpoint

RA - Rheumatoid Arthritis - is somewhat dominating our life at the moment.
Tone has it. It's an auto-immune disease - the immune system attacks your joints (the fluid and membrane) as it thinks they are the enemy. This leads to joint pain, stiffness and swelling. The immune reaction creates flu-like symptoms, which are made worse becuase of the inflammation and the breakdown of proteins that occurs. So basically Tone feels ill most of the time. He is often in pain, always tired and then of course there's the effects of the drugs he's taking.
The main drug - taken to slow down his immune system - is methotrexate - mtx. It causes nausea and diarrohea amongst other things.
To find out more about his experience read his blog here.

I went through a stage of doing lots of things for him including some essential things like helping him out of the bath when he was very poorly. Now he seems a little better - certainly he is more mobile - that's less the issue. More significant now is feeling like there's not a lot I can do - sometimes giving practical help is better! I feel frustrated sometimes - mostly about the lack of physical activity - although today - astoundingly - we have cleaned the windows, sorted the bookshelves! That's a very good day!!

Ho - hum - we just have our fingers crossed that the unwanted effects get less.....and soon!