Arthritis and COVID-19

Georgiax7

As everyone is already aware of COVID-19, I thought I would come on here to ask how people are feeling about the current situation. COVID-19 stopping everything in our lives is already hard enough but to live with a chronic condition makes it increasingly difficult. Many of you may have received a letter saying you should remain inside because you are high risk, I received a letter answering possible questions about that letter but never received one myself. Over my JIA journey I have found it incredibly hard on my mental health and found that a psychologist helped me a great deal. When the pandemic began i was completely blindsided by the fact that my appointments would be cancelled, this meant no more important meetings with my psychologist which I relied on to keep me going through the arthritis, and to also have a pre op appointment for my jaw being cancelled broke me. Knowing I was in such pain, having no one to speak to and also not being able to receive the help I needed has become such a struggle for me. Everybody in the country right now is finding this pandemic incredibly difficult but it won’t compare to the difficulties that patients with chronic illnesses are facing. Many of our treatments are being delayed, we have nobody keeping us updated on our health and we cannot advance in our improvement in our condition. I mostly wanted to come onto here to ask if anybody is feeling incredibly down by what is going on because of the lack of support and if there treatment has been incredibly affected?

YvonneH

Hi Georgiax7,

How lovely to meet you, thanks for registering to your new forum! How lovely too that your first post was to someone suffering with a similar problem to yourself too, offering help, advice and support, I can tell you know how wonderful that can be - Liv20 will be so reassured by your comments.

Keeping up your mental health is very hard when all you hear is cancellations and as a result your pain is prolonged. Have a look at this page from our website, it’s got lots of links that could be useful

https://www.versusarthritis.org/news/2020/march/arthritis-and-coronavirus-looking-after-your-emotional-wellbeing/

Perhaps you could try out some of the links and let us know how you get on, which would be suitable for which circumstance which would be very helpful for all of our forum members as well as for yourself.

Take care

Yvonne x

Ria_Mae

Hi,

I hope you are okay and well. My name is Ria, I am also new and am in a very similar situation. My operation got cancelled two days before it was meant to happen and my much needed Jaw appointment got cancelled due to the lock down. It is so frustrating and i have now got a new psychologist which i am hoping will help.

I have also got JIA which is now RA due to my age. Feeling low is happening quite a lot with what is going on and trying to keep occupied and not have flares is a massive struggle at the moment.

I hope you stay well and strong through these hard times.

-Ria

Ellen

A quick Hi and welcome to @Ria_Mae (apologies Georgia for the hijack!)

I am very sorry to hear about your cancelled operation. Some hospitals are now undertaking elective surgeries again so it might be an idea to get in touch.

Best wishes

Ellen

Georgiax7

Hi @Ria_Mae, it’s really nice to Discuss this with someone about what is going on right now who relates! I feel as though friends and family aren’t being the most supportive during this time as they tend to bring up other matters when you talk about your cancelled operation etc. As I know there are other problems right now it is still very upsetting for people with conditions that had their appointments cancelled. Although I know that they will start to reschedule operations soon, the operations going to take longer to happen as many others will have to receive theirs which will lead to many peoples condition getting worse. I really feel you when you talk about feeling low as you feel isolated! Not being able to see my psychologist in months has had a really big toll on my mental health, I also fear as though my condition will get worse as I cannot discuss things I usually do with the rheumatology team and fear that it will be months before I am seen with anybody again. I really hope you receive your operation as soon as possible and I really hope that you begin to feel better! Best wishes x