New member worrying about arthritis and mental health

johnbrissenden

Hello

I have had depression for over 20 years (I am 60), and I was diagnosed with osteoarthritis (in the knees) in 2019. Over the winter I was experiencing high levels of stress at work, and I had COVID over Christmas. When I returned to work in January, I found I had very low motivation and energy, and - although I didn't make the connection at the time - my arthritis flared up quite badly. My GP signed me off work at the beginning of February, and although my mental health has improved, my arthritis hasn't. He believes that the antidepressant that I was on may be contributing to the arthritis, and so he is switching me over from Venlafaxine to Duloxetine.

I would be interested to hear your experiences of the interaction of stress and OA, and any advice you have. I feel pretty good at managing depression, but managing depression and OA is a whole new ballgame!

John

Ellen

Hello @johnbrissenden Welcome to the Versus Arthritis online community and thank you for your post.

The issue of Arthritis and Mental health comes up fairly regularly here as you can probably imagine, living with a long term condition is very likely to impact our mental health. In addition you mention lockdown which has also had a real impact on many of our members' lives.

Firstly I am going to attach this link:

https://www.versusarthritis.org/news/2021/september/arthritis-and-depression-what-you-can-do-about-it/

and while you wait for some of our members to reply to your post here are two stories:

https://www.versusarthritis.org/news/2021/october/how-does-arthritis-affect-mental-health-two-people-tell-us/

I am glad to see your GP is helping and has changed your medication to try to improve your joint pain.

Finally I am attaching a link to our helpline should it be that you think talking to someone might be of benefit to you:

https://www.versusarthritis.org/get-help/

Very best wises

Ellen.