Educate yourself. Read everything you can get your hands on. Learn about your disease. This is usually the first bit of advice offered to a newly-diagnosed arthritis patient.
Sound advice for sure. But that same kernel of advice can trip up some patients when they stumble across words like "crippling", "disabled", and "deformity". Scary words, which when combined with the uncertain and unpredictable prognosis associated with many types of arthritis, can leave a person feeling:
- bound by limitations
- consumed by negative thoughts
- fearful of the future
Read the entire article.