Relationship with a chronic illness

Em1234554

I have recently been diagnosed with OA and fibro.

I had JRA as a child however was fine for ten years until till January where I had a massive flare up leaving me now with continued pain and mobility issues. following the flare up I got diagnosed with OS and fibro I and ONLY 26!

I am trying to my best daily to help my conditions and add lifestyle changes to help.

with the conditions I still get times where I am unable to cope and need to go to bed, sleep longer, tired and unable to do things, miss activities or social events,

I have a long term partner however he is really struggling to come with terms with this as it’s only been the last year I have been experiencing these symptoms.

he works late and we argue about me staying up to see him. I do try sometimes but it’s more often than not I am unable to and will effect the day if I didn’t

Am I not being considerate or is there a way I can get my partner to understand?

how do you deal with your symptoms in a relationship ?

many advice would be very grateful

[Deleted User]

Hi @Em1234554, welcome to the Online Community! It's lovely to have you here.

I see that you are dealing with a flare-up of arthritis and have been diagnosed with fibromyalgia, and that your symptoms are causing challenges in your relationship.

First of all I would like to say that you are not alone in this and you have come to a good place for advice from friendly people with similar experiences.

It can be really hard to feel you aren't being heard or understood, and fibromyalgia as an invisible disability can be difficult to understand for those that don't live with it. It might help for your partner to take the time learn more about fibromyalgia:

https://www.versusarthritis.org/about-arthritis/conditions/fibromyalgia/

And you might also find this information helpful:

https://www.versusarthritis.org/news/2020/december/relationships-and-arthritis-how-to-strike-a-healthy-balance/

https://www.versusarthritis.org/about-arthritis/managing-symptoms/managing-your-pain/

Best wishes, Sarah (moderator)

Mike1

My cat seems to understand me!!

frogmorton

Hi @Em1234554

Take a look at this....

https://butyoudontlooksick.com/articles/written-by-christine/the-spoon-theory/

If you can get your partner to read this he might just understand a bit better how much getting through each day takes out of you.

and take him with you to your rheumatology appointments too if you can

((()))

Take care

stickywicket

Em, relationships can be really tricky when one partner has arthritis. The other is unlikely to understand the difficulties especially if we look fine. It's not for nothing that we say on here that arthritis affects everyone in a family but in different ways.

Frogmorton's suggestion is a good one. You cannot, however hard you try, have the energy levels of someone without arthritis. Your partner needs to understand that and then you need to work out together how you can deal with things so that they are as good as possible for both of you. Both will have to give a bit.

Just a thought - you write of OA and fibro but who diagnosed you? If you had JRA, has a rheumatologist seen you recently? If you have RA you will need disease modifying meds.