The Pain Beneath My Bones: My Battle with an Autoimmune Disease (RA)

I am not sharing my story to gain sympathy or praise. I am sharing this because maybe somewhere, someone shared the same case with me, and my words can somehow light his or her fight against the same storm I am facing.

It was in my early 30s when, many times, I felt sudden pain in my joints: knees, arms, and fingers. The tingling pain was bearable anyway, so I haven't had a check-up with a doctor to find out what that pain was all about. I was thinking, perhaps it was because of my fast-gained weight, or the food that I ate. I usually took pain relievers like paracetamol and ibuprofen when the pain lasted few days.

It was also in my mid-30s when I was diagnosed with PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome) and Endometrioma. I also began to experience some allergies to foods, though those were rare attacks. Like when I eat shrimp, there were times when I felt some skin itch, while there were times too that I didn't feel any. I agree, at 30, life begins to struggle with some minor health issues.

On my 39th birthday, I was confined when I had dehydration due to frequent vomiting and stomachache. That was not a very pretty birthday gift, but I was still grateful I made it through. A few months later, on the last week of September 2023, I noticed my joint pains, from my knees down to my feet and from my elbows down to my arms and hands. At first, I took some pain relievers, but I noticed that the pain didn't go away; instead, it became more and more painful every day. And day by day, my joints grew swollen.

Both of my hands were swollen, and my feet were swollen too. I made all the remedies I could, and took everything that I heard that could help my condition, by nothing happened. If I had to rate the pain from 1 to 10, I would say it was 11/10. I cried in the middle of the night when the pain woke me up. It felt like my bones were cracking and my flesh was pounded into bits. I couldn't explain the pain, but again, it was more painful, painful than laboring for birth.

It was October 1, 2023, when I couldn't stand or walk anymore. My hands couldn't hold even the spoon when I ate. My partner had to feed me. I couldn't hold my phone or anything anymore. I was like a deteriorated vegetable, lame and pale.

My family brought me to a tertiary hospital in Cagayan de Oro. I had all the laboratory tests, and the veins in my arms turned violet from the frequent blood sampling, but after 3 days had passed, the doctor couldn't tell us what was wrong with me. All the test results were normal. The pain kept growing, and the swell kept growing too. That was one of the lowest days in my life. I kept on praying that the doctor could at least determine the cause of my illness and could give me the treatment. I was hopeless.

Fortunately, after the last laboratory test that the doctor made or else he would have sent me home if it was still normal. It was found out that I had an autoimmune disease called Rheumatoid Arthritis. The disease name sounds fine, and we can simply think of it as an arthritis, but it's not. It is AUTOIMMUNE. Now I believe in FOREVER!. Because there is no cure for RA, and this disease will be with me forever. And the worst part of living in the hospital for a week with tests and steroids was that my bill reached 64K pesos, or more or less 1,160USD. That was stressful.

My bill on the 4th day of confinement. And I stayed 3 more days in the hospital after this.

Rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disease. It’s more than just joint pain; it’s my body mistakenly attacking itself, and me learning, every day, how to live with that betrayal. My flare-ups were gone after a week, and everything went back to normal after shots of steroids and immune boosters.

What triggers Rheumatoid Arthritis? Yes! You’re absolutely right. Stress can be a powerful trigger for rheumatoid arthritis (RA). While RA is caused by a complex mix of genetics, immune system malfunction, and sometimes environmental factors, which include food, stress is well known to make symptoms worse and can even trigger flare-ups.

When you’re stressed, your body releases stress hormones that can mess with your immune system’s balance. For someone with RA, this can lead to increased inflammation, more pain, fatigue, and more frequent flares.

People with RA like me found out that stress management, like mindfulness, gentle exercise, therapy, or simply finding ways to rest, can help reduce flares or make RA easier to handle.

It is also good to have an early check-up when you have inflammation and pain in your joints for early intervention. and remedies. Today, I always think of the 64K bill during my hospitalization as my motivation to not stress myself too much, and it's been almost 2 years since then.

If you’re reading this because you have rheumatoid arthritis, or you think you might, I hope you find something here that helps you feel less alone.