Hello everyone.. help needed.

Vickiloola
Vickiloola Member Posts: 1
edited 8. Apr 2025, 10:18 in Living with arthritis

Hi all,

I was diagnosed with arthritus in both knees, left hip and lower spine just over a year ago and I cant lie I'm still struggling to understand what's going on with my body and how to cope with change to my life and mobility. The hardest thing for me is not being able to walk very far on bad days which is most days however If I'm having a good day and do try to be more mobile the next day I'm worse than ever and in much more pain the next day. I've been given amitriptyline and diazepan for bad days but these just make me feel like a zombie! Any ideas and tips about managing this horrible thing would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks guys

Victoria

Comments

  • Ellen
    Ellen Moderator Posts: 1,956

    Hi @Vickiloola welcome to the online community. It sounds like you have arthritis in quite a few areas and are finding it debilitating and very painful.

    Hasn't anyone suggested physiotherapy to you? In many areas (including mine) you can self refer via your GP surgery. It is often the case that the physio Musculoskeletal (MSK) team seem to be the ones who refer on to consultants for their opinion not GPs.

    Hopefully some of our members will come along with ideas which help them a little, but in the meantime I am going to attach some information which might be worth a read:

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

    This article is about us adapting mentally as well as physically if you are interested:

    https://www.versusarthritis.org/news/2021/august/how-to-adapt-when-you-ve-been-diagnosed-with-arthritis/

    My best wishes

    Ellen.

  • frogmorton
    frogmorton Member Posts: 30,322

    Hi @Vickiloola nice to meet you. Sorry you've had to find us, but maybe we can help a little so you don't feel so alone with all of this.

    Yes I agree a referral to physio is a great idea, but a couple of other things I wanted to ask like - have you no ordinary painkillers to take or anti-inflammatories?

    Things which help me apart from pain relief include my microwaveable wheatbag, I have some MSN gel to massage into sore areas, sometime an icepack is the answer and I also have tens machine. Finally I do stuff to distract myself because pain is 100Xs worse for me when all I do is think and worry about it. Coming here, reading listening to audiobooks etc all help.

    Sending you some ((())) and hope you won't take this lying down you need to take some action and get physio at least to start with if you see your GP for pain relief do take someone with you. You tend to be taken more seriously then.

    Toni x

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