When do we get treatment?

Supermand

I sent a letter to my MP as requested about attending the 'Versus Arthritis' parliamentary reception on Wednesday 11 December'.

I received a standard reply that he would attend if possible.

In his reply he spoke about how important it was to reduce waiting times for joint replacement operations Obviously I agree that that is important but why does nobody mention that research must be done to find ways of treating arthritis before the patient has to have a joint replaced.

Personally I have never received any treatment to stop/slow my arthritis and I have been having joint problems for nearly 50 years which has meant that so far I have had 3 joints replaced. Left elbow, right ankle and last year left hip. I have several other joints that will probably need to be replaced in the future but I believe time/money should be spent trying to help patients before their joints are so bad they have to be replaced.

I wonder if there id any figures on how much work time is lost because of arthritis: taking time off work for appointments; operations and just because the patient is unable to go to work due to pain or other problems.

Loggiemod

Hello @Supermand good question about time lost for work. MPs just give the answer that they think we want to hear. Yes, it would be great to reduce waiting times (What are they going to do to make it happen?) but it would be nice if they could also look at funding research to prevent arthritis as well.