Living with 'arthritis'

DorothyParker

I don't tend to use this forum much and I think the reason might be partly because all forms of arthritis have been lumped together. I know generally speaking we share some things like pain and disability, and as a general support group it shouldn't matter what condition you have. But experiences and treatments differ greatly, as does our knowledge.

I can't help thinking it would be more useful if instead of all these different sub-categories like life with arthritis, financial, news, whatever, there were also categories for different conditions.

I have a spondyloarthropathy and I'm afraid I can't relate to someone with, say, giant cell arteritis any more than I relate to someone with multiple sclerosis. Why Versus Arthritis talks about arthritis like it's a single disease I don't know.

PeterJ

Hello @DorothyParker and thank you for your suggestion. We are always looking at how to make the Community work better for the members and I will make sure your comments are passed on.

Please do keep posting though and have you tried the search function on the main website? I've put a link to an example below

https://www.versusarthritis.org/about-arthritis/conditions/osteoarthritis-oa-of-the-spine/

Best wishes

Peter (moderator)

Mike1

What's in a name? I don't have spondyloarthropathy but I do have Degenerative Facet Joint Disease, widespread OA affecting all my joints (except hips at the moment for some strange reason) and in my neck and spine. From reading the description of your condition on Google I would say that there is a lot of similarities between our conditions and, therefore, things like coping strategies and so forth will be similar. I must say that I usually skirt over posts which are specifically to do with RA, although in the wee hours when there is nothing much on TV I will go through them. Anyway, it's good to natter sometimes, especially when living alone as my cat is not much of a conversationalist!

Lilymary

It's good idea in principle, but it does create problems for people like Mike, and so many others, who have multiple conditions that are being managed and/or treated simultaneously.

I only have OA at the moment (that I know of), so I don't have much I can contribute to posts about other conditions other than my experience of pain management techniques or general encouragement. So I also find I'm opening posts that aren't strictly relevant to my experience. But that's a feature of most forums I find, and a difficult one to resolve. Those I can't help with I close and move on.

However, I have found from reading posts from others that I have learnt a huge amount about arthritis in all its many forms, some of which I had never heard of, and that can only be a good thing.

YvonneH

Hi @DorothyParker

I agree that there are some arthritis conditions which are very unlike the majority of arthritis types. We thought about using conditions rather than problems associated by arthritis in general when we moved onto this forum but in the end decided this was the better way to allow conversations to take place. It woud be rare to find enough members with giant cell arteritis posting at the same time to allow a conversation to take place whereas they could talk with most people with inflammatory arthritis regarding side effects of steroids.

Sadly we can't place comments in more than one discussion so our way of filtering is to use the search button. You will see it as the magnifying glass at the top of the page. I typed in spondyloarthropathy and came up with a number of discussions.

Am I right in thinking you have an autoimmune spondylitis? It is very similar to PsA, JIA and other conditions in medication and difficulties caused by the condition. The non inflammatory condition is spondylosis as Peter mentioned above.

You will find lots of disease specific information on our website which I am posting with the information on ankolysing spondylitis https://www.versusarthritis.org/about-arthritis/conditions/ankylosing-spondylitis/ It also has a search button at the top of the page just as here

I do hope you will find more to interest you in your community here as you look around

Yvonne x

Mike1

What I do when I log in to the forum is go to "Recent Posts" on the top bar and then read the posts with the titles that interest me or apply to me, then when I have finished I click on "Mark all posts read" on the right hand side of the page.

DorothyParker

Hi YvonneH and everyone else - thank you for your considered response. I see both sides, and I think there is a lot to be said for some overlap. I personally also have osteoarthritis and another autoimmune disease too, so would never see it completely in isolation. It's interesting to hear other people's views.