I know i have anxiety as well. I get worked up over not getting stuff done like i used to. Simple things like shoveling snow, mopping the floor which i like to do by hand. Not having people understand my disease. The fatigue and muscle deterioration is wearing on my mental health. I try so hard to be positive and upbeat, but there are days I want to disappear.

I’m so sorry to hear that ShelleyThom, it’s such an awful and unpredictable disease. I was never a worrier and now my anxiety is almost as bad as my pain which only makes things worse. To be washing dishes and out of nowhere a pain that knocks you down there are so many uncertainties about your future and at that particular moment you think you are dying. I wouldn’t wish this horrible disease on anyone.

I do too. RA can affect every part of your body. Heart, lungs skin, joints. For your own piece of mind do research, everyone is different.

Sorry this comment was meant for someone else. Not sure how it was added to your post😕

I have been fighting anxiety and depression since I can remember but here lately I’ve been wondering if I have been having RA since my childhood. Autoimmune disease runs rampant in my family. My mother and her four sisters had RA but they never discussed it and none of them saw a rheumy. My aunt passed away first almost 20 years ago at 43 yrs from interstitial lung disease, my mom at 57 six years ago and now my other aunt is 57 and she has bone and lung cancer and have never smoked, my other aunt is barely walking. Now I see the link and it’s scary sometimes, especially when I’ve had every symptom documented and the onset of strange symptoms started long ago for me. My mother always had those chest pains pains though and her hands would give out on her all the time and I remember her toes started stacking on top of the other. I remember when we thought she was a hypochondriac but if she could see me now smh...