Advice on coping with pain, newly diagnosed

PBL3
PBL3 Member Posts: 6
edited 28. Nov 2023, 14:06 in Living with arthritis

Hi,

Sorry for the long rant.

I am in my early 40's and recently been diagnosed with moderate osteoarthritis in my left hip. I am overweight and know this does not help at all. I have put on weight during the pandemic, as have lots of others but am really struggling to lose it. There is a lot going on in my life not related to my diagnosis which leaves me stressed and my coping mechanism is to comfort eat. I seem to be stuck in this cycle.

The pain today is awful, i cannot get comfy at all, either sitting on sofa, in office chair or in bed. I am hardly sleeping due to the pain and am so tired. I attend physio and am doing the exercises given to me. I limp all the time and due to this my other foot/ankle has now started to swell up making walking very awkward.

My GP has told me to keep regularly taking the Naproxen i have for another condition(only take as and when for that one) to help the pain, (even though it is doing nothing to ease the pain) and also given me codeine to take at night. However i am very sensitive to opiates and can only take small doses at a time especially as i have a young child to look after and need to drive. The only other thing they told me was to lose weight. no other help was offered at all.

For work i am still mostly working from home and sit in front of my laptop for most of the day. I try to get up and move about as often as i can so as not to go stiff but it is still a couple of hours at a time.

I am really struggling with it all and any support or advice would be very welcome right now as all i want to do is curl up and cry as the pain and lack of sleep is getting to me.

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