Arthritis: Explained 

Released May 13, 2025
 

PODCAST OPEN:      

You’re listening to the Live Yes! With Arthritis podcast, created by the Arthritis Foundation to help people with arthritis — and the people who love them — live their best lives. This podcast and other life-changing resources are made possible by gifts from donors like you. If you’re dealing with chronic pain, this podcast is for you. You may have arthritis, but it doesn’t have you. Here, learn how you can take control of arthritis with tips and ideas from our hosts and guest experts.

This episode of the Live Yes! With Arthritis podcast is brought to you in part by AbbVie and by ZetrOZ.

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Jamie Nicole: Hello, and welcome to the Live Yes! With Arthritis podcast. I'm Jamie Nicole, your host for today's episode, Arthritis Explained. So, a little about myself: I am a certified health coach, patient advocate and a fitness instructor for those with limited mobility. I've been living with multiple autoimmune diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis, and have been managing osteoarthritis for about 20 years. I am very passionate about helping our community find ways to manage and thrive in spite of chronic illness.

 

And I'm very excited about today's episode. Our guest today is Dr. Lesley Jackson of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, who is going to talk about what exactly arthritis is, what it isn't and what you should know about this widely misunderstood disease. Welcome, Dr. Jackson. How are you doing today?

 

Dr. Lesley Jackson: Thank you very much. I'm great. How are you?

 

Jamie Nicole: I'm doing great, too. So, let's go ahead and jump in. Could you tell us a little about your professional background and what led you to specialize in rheumatology?

 

Dr. Lesley Jackson: Absolutely. I'm originally from the Midwest. I'm from Indiana, and I attended college and medical school there. But I've since moved quite a bit. I've spent some time in Kenya, Uganda and Botswana, working with patients in the local medical system in some of these places.

 

I've known for quite a long time that I've wanted to be a rheumatologist, and it's because I developed juvenile arthritis when I was a teenager. And this really inspired me to pursue this career and try to make a difference for other people that have walked a similar path. I'm pretty open about this with my patients, especially patients when they're having a really hard time with a new diagnosis or trying to determine what types of medicines they want to take. And I've found that it's really helpful to share some of this.

 

Jamie Nicole: think that's so wonderful. Having a doctor not only that cares but understands from personal experience changes your perspective and your journey when you're battling it yourself. Let's talk about the types of arthritis that most people think about. When people hear arthritis, they think osteoarthritis. They consider it a "wear and tear" disease. But science has shown that there's much more to it than that. Can you explain what we now know about how osteoarthritis actually develops?

 

Dr. Lesley Jackson: Sure. So, as you mentioned, we've long considered osteoarthritis to be this "wear and tear." We know that mechanical factors play a big role. So, this means if you've had a lot of stress on a joint or you've had damage to a joint — stress might be from being overweight or having had a lot of injury in competitive sports — we know that those joints that have had a lot of those factors involved are more likely to develop osteoarthritis in the long term. But we now know, as you mentioned, that developing osteoarthritis... It's a lot more complex, actually. And we now think that there's an inflammatory component as well. And this is quite a new idea.

 

If you look at the joints of people that have inflammatory arthritis — so, for example, rheumatoid arthritis — and you've got somebody with a big, red, swollen knee, and you get a little bit of fluid out of the joint, and you look at that fluid under a microscope, you're going to see a whole bunch of angry little white blood cells, and these are inflammatory cells.

 

And the other thing you'll see is the lining around the joint. In people with rheumatoid arthritis or inflammatory arthritis, it's also going to be thickened and really inflammatory. But we don't see the same type of inflammation in osteoarthritis. So, if you look at that fluid, you might see some cells, but it's not going to be the same type, or to the same degree, as inflammatory arthritis.

 

So, we're learning a lot more about this, and we are seeing some degree of inflammation, and we don't fully understand what's going on there, but there's a lot more to learn. There are a few that we think about. While people with osteoarthritis, they tend to have certain joints involved, for instance the knees or the hips, we also see other joints involved, even when there's not mechanical stress. Really common location, you might see a lot of osteoarthritis in the hands. There are other factors that are playing a role that we don't fully understand yet.

 

Jamie Nicole: So, what are some things we can do to provide the doctor, the primary care physician, the correct information, or enough information to where a light goes off, so we can get that referral to someone like you, who can do some further tests and not just dismiss us because they think it's something else?

 

Dr. Lesley Jackson: Yeah, it's a really great question. Something that's been helpful for patients, I think, is to keep a log of symptoms. So, if you notice that a certain joint is bothering you, sometimes it's hard to recall when you're in the doctor's office what kind of symptoms you've had and how long it's been going on and sort of the pattern of that pain. Keeping a log, you know, writing down, "It's worse in the morning" when you first get up. It's really stiff in the morning when you first get up, and it actually gets better as the day goes on. You've noticed that it's red or swelling at certain times, or hot to the touch, and you can tell a difference between different joints.

 

Write those things down, because that can be really helpful when you're in the doctor's office and talking to your primary care doctor. These should all be, sort of, you know, red flags to them that this might not just be growing pains and that there could be something else going on, and that patient needs to be evaluated by a specialist or needs further workup, at minimum, to better evaluate that.

 

Jamie Nicole: Are there ways to reduce the risk of developing osteoarthritis or slowing its progression?

 

Dr. Lesley Jackson:

Sure, yeah, there are potentially a few things that can help. We do know that being overweight can increase the risk of osteoarthritis, especially in the knees and hips. So, making sure that you're doing everything you can to maintain a healthy weight can be helpful. Regular exercise, and especially strength training, can be helpful. When someone has osteoarthritis in their knees, older adults, you know — we see this a lot — one of the first things we recommend is actually strengthening the quadriceps muscles.

 

Strengthening those muscles through physical therapy or a structured exercise program can be really helpful for osteoarthritis, and it can help prevent it from getting worse over time. And then, certainly, treating injuries when they happen. A lot of young athletes could have knee injuries or other injuries, but making sure that you get that evaluated by someone to make sure that you're not causing yourself issues down the road can be helpful.

 

Jamie Nicole: Why has developing a cure for osteoarthritis been so elusive?

 

Dr. Lesley Jackson: Yeah, it's true that we don't have a definitive cure yet. As we talked about, the goals of treatment for osteoarthritis are really focused on decreasing the pain that is the hallmark, right? Optimizing function, trying to make sure that we're doing everything we can to improve quality of life.

 

We target some of the risk factors that can be changed, like weight loss, smoking, metabolic syndrome, some of these other things. But we don't have any medications that can cure osteoarthritis. Some people will get joint replacements. That can certainly help. Some people will get different types of injections that are available. But I think one of the main reasons we don't have a cure is because the way osteoarthritis occurs.

 

The mechanism is different than some of the other types of arthritis that we treat. And we're still working to understand what causes it, in addition to the mechanical load that we discussed. But there are some experimental treatments that are in the pipeline. So, who knows? Maybe in the next few years or decade we might have something new to offer. But, as you said, right now it's really focused on function and quality of life and minimizing pain at this point in time.

 

Jamie Nicole: Absolutely. And it's also why it's important for us to get involved with clinical trials. Anything that we can do now, not to just help ourselves but help the research so we can find a cure in the future I think is just so important.

 

Dr. Lesley Jackson:

If there's a clinical trial in your area, definitely ask questions, find out if you might qualify, if it's something you might be interested in. Clinical trials are how we gain new data and how we gain new evidence on better ways to treat people. And it is the highest quality evidence that we can do is when we do clinical trials, and we collect data from multiple clinical trials. So, you know, patients are an integral part of that process. We cannot conduct these without patients' active participation.

 

Jamie Nicole: We need as many people as we can, because people don't realize there are more than a hundred diseases under the umbrella of arthritis.

 

PROMO: An arthritis diagnosis can be overwhelming — learning about your disease, getting started on new medications and making lifestyle changes. But there are plenty of steps you can take to manage arthritis, regain control and get back to doing the things you love. Get tips at arthritis.org/newly-diagnosed.

 

Jamie Nicole: Can you explain what arthritis actually means? And then also, what unites such a wide range of conditions under that particular term?

 

Dr. Lesley Jackson: So, arthritis — it's this sort of broad term that you mentioned. It affects the joints, which is where two bones come together, and they allow movement. Arthritis is what happens when you have damage to that joint or multiple joints. It can be from inflammation, it can be from stress to the joint. There's a lot of different causes.

 

But the overarching idea is that you get pain and loss of mobility, so you can't move that joint as well. You might have swelling in the joint and, ultimately, it causes damage to the joint that can be hard to treat long term. Sometimes, people with arthritis, they can have other areas that are affected, too, around the joint. So, the tendons and the ligaments. It can affect even other organ systems depending on what's causing the joint damage.

 

Jamie Nicole: Is it possible for you to have a diagnosis of, for example, osteoarthritis or rheumatoid arthritis, and then also have issues with what you think is one of those other types of arthritis, but you're not diagnosed?

 

Dr. Lesley Jackson:

Absolutely. People can have more than one condition. That's what makes it so challenging sometimes to diagnose. And that's why it can be really challenging, you know, when you go to your primary care doctor or your other doctor, and you're explaining a lot of symptoms that might seem unrelated but potentially could be related.

 

Classic example of this is many patients with rheumatoid arthritis will also have osteoarthritis. That is really common. It can happen in joints that weren't necessarily affected by RA. So, again, the knees and hips are really common places you can get osteoarthritis. But the other thing is: People can get what we call "secondary osteoarthritis" in the joints that they previously had a lot of inflammation from their RA. So, let's say in their wrist, they used to have a lot of swelling and pain and redness, and they got on great treatment for rheumatoid arthritis, and that got their RA under control. But because they had so much damage to those joints, now they're dealing with osteoarthritis, which is still really painful. But the treatment for those two things is going to be different.

 

And so, it's definitely possible, and we see it frequently, that different types of arthritis can happen in the same person. And teasing out, you know, the symptoms and the pattern, those are all really important to try to figure out the best way to treat someone to help improve their quality of life and to help improve their pain.

 

Jamie Nicole: Very interesting. I've had osteo for about 20 years. I was “diagnosed,” I’m going to say that, in quotes, in 2023 with rheumatoid arthritis. When someone comes to the rheumatologist, what are you going to do to evaluate me? And if I'm having symptoms but it doesn't come back positive on the labs, what are our next steps after that?

 

D. Lesley Jackson: So, you bring up one of the biggest challenges in rheumatology, and it's that patients don't read the textbook. What that means is that many people don't present in the classic way that we read about in medical school and residency because everybody's different. We all have a different background; we all have different genetics. And so, what I mean is that you may not have had the classic symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis or mixed connective tissue disease, but it's our job to work with you and make our best evaluation, our best estimate, about what we think is going on in order to tailor the treatment to best help you.

 

And so, when I see a new patient in clinic that has different symptoms, the first thing that we do is we take a really detailed history. I'm going to ask you a lot of questions about the pattern of your joint pain. "Does it hurt worse in the morning?" "Is it worse with activity, or does it get better with activity?" "Is it worse at the end of the day?" "Do you feel really stiff when you first get up in the morning, or do you feel worse at the end of the day?" "Do you have any joint swelling?"

 

And then other risk factors. We always ask about family history because a lot of these autoimmune conditions will run in families, and it's really important to ask about parents, siblings, grandparents. Because a lot of times, we'll hear that rheumatoid arthritis, or lupus, or mixed connective tissue disease, that a family member has those. So, we'll definitely ask about family history.

 

We're also going to do an exam, take a look at your shoulders, take a look at the joints in your hands. Because sometimes, even if people don't have pain or swelling, or they don't remember having pain or swelling in their hands, sometimes we can see findings in the hands, or the skin, even someone's fingernails, that clue us in about one diagnosis versus another.

 

That'll be the first appointment, typically. And then we'll usually obtain lab testing, which can be helpful. But again, isn't the end-all, be-all, because not everyone has the positive tests. And sometimes we have to put everything together and make our best evaluation, our best estimate, based on what the history is and the exam and the laboratory results.

 

We'll have a conversation about shared decision-making. You know, "This is what I believe is going on, and here is what I think we should do next, but what do you think? Do you want to consider moving forward with this treatment?" And I'll present the pros and cons. "Or would you prefer we do something else?"

 

So, this aspect of shared decision-making that, based on my expertise and my training, this is what I believe we should do. But we always take the patient's perspective into consideration because you're the one, ultimately, that's going to be impacted by whatever treatment you would end up taking or not taking.

 

I should have mentioned this before. We frequently get X-rays, as well, of the joints that are involved, as part of the initial workup or the initial evaluation. If we're suspecting rheumatoid arthritis in someone, even if they're not reporting symptoms in the hands or feet, many times we'll get X-rays of the hands and feet. And the reason for that is because we can look and see patterns that are in the X-rays that are characteristic of rheumatoid arthritis.

 

We can look and see sort of some of the characteristic findings. And oftentimes, that looks different than somebody with osteoarthritis. And also other types of arthritis. Gout, for example, is a good example, where those findings might look different than rheumatoid arthritis or osteoarthritis.

 

Jamie Nicole: And so, just for clarification, you can have or develop rheumatoid arthritis, and it just doesn't have to start in your hands and feet. It can start elsewhere?

 

Dr. Lesley Jackson: It can start elsewhere. We learned that rheumatoid arthritis usually involves the hands and feet, like you said, but not everyone... Sometimes it does start in the knees, or it starts in the elbow, or the shoulders, and it progresses to include other joints. Again, all of these things make it tricky to diagnose. And it can be really challenging, even to get that referral to see a specialist, because it's mimicking some of these other more common things like osteoarthritis.

 

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Jamie Nicole: What are some key differences between the autoimmune forms of arthritis, like rheumatoid or psoriatic, versus osteoarthritis?

 

Dr. Lesley Jackson: Absolutely. So, conditions like rheumatoid arthritis and psoriatic arthritis, we consider those as autoimmune conditions. Whereas osteoarthritis, we don't consider that an autoimmune condition. But like I said before, it has some inflammatory

components, potentially. And so, what do I mean by autoimmune disease? The immune system should protect us against things like viruses and bacteria.

 

It's sort of like your security team for your body. And normally, it fights off these invaders. But sometimes, unfortunately, it gets confused and mistakenly attacks its own healthy cells. It can attack joints, muscles, tendons, sometimes other organs. And many times, we work with other specialists to treat autoimmune conditions. So, if somebody has inflammatory bowel disease, so we're talking about Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis, they see a gastroenterologist for that. But we might also see that person if they get arthritis related to their Crohn's disease. And so, we work with the GI doctor on the medications that could treat both conditions.

 

Jamie Nicole: How do inflammatory forms of arthritis, like RA, psoriatic arthritis, spondyloarthritis and juvenile idiopathic arthritis differ from each other?

 

Dr. Lesley Jackson: Sure. These are all different types of autoimmune arthritis. Like I said, one of the hallmarks of any of these is going to be joint damage. But the way they present, so that means sort of what symptoms someone has, is different between some of these different conditions. For instance, rheumatoid arthritis typically like I said is going to affect the small joints of your hands. You're going to have morning stiffness. When someone first gets up in the morning, they'll feel really stiff. It's hard to get up out of bed; it's hard to get moving. They might feel better after a hot shower or running their hands under hot water. I hear my patients tell me this all the time.

 

And then it gets better. With light activity, walking around a little bit, a lot of times they'll feel better after a while. And even light physical activity actually helps. They feel a lot better after walking, or as the day gets going. Those symptoms are really similar, honestly, with things like psoriatic arthritis. With psoriatic arthritis, you're going to have a history of this rash, the psoriasis. Either the person will, or a close family member will also have that. And in addition to that, they can also have different types of swelling.

 

Sometimes, the whole finger will swell up. Or someone will report inflammatory eye disease, so they'll have inflammation in their eyes, and they had to be on steroid eye drops by the eye doctor. And we can see that with a lot of different autoimmune conditions. But that's one of the things that we ask about, specifically, in like psoriatic arthritis.

 

Ankylosing spondylitis is another inflammatory autoimmune condition. Most of these people will have a lot of back pain, and it usually starts when they're younger, too. A lot of the back pain that people develop later in life is going to be from osteoarthritis. But if you have a younger person, let's say in their thirties, that all of a sudden is developing a lot of low back pain, it's really painful in the morning when they first get up, it's really stiff. These are some of the clues that tell you there could be an inflammatory part of this that's going on.

 

And then the last thing you mentioned was the juvenile arthritis. And this is a whole discussion in itself. These are kids that develop arthritis. There's different types of juvenile arthritis. It can affect a single joint; they can have swelling or pain in one joint, let's say their knee, or it can affect a lot of different joints. You can also have other symptoms. You can have rash and fever and other things when this happens in kids.

 

Jamie Nicole: How does that distinguish from osteo, which is that more throughout the day, or it's no particular time? It's just hurting all of the time?

 

Dr. Lesley Jackson:

It's a great question. So, classically, people with osteoarthritis, they feel worse when they're using the joint a lot. So, typing or walking, climbing stairs, all of these things typically make the joints hurt more with osteoarthritis. But usually, with things like rheumatoid arthritis and the inflammatory autoimmune conditions, usually light activity, people feel a little bit better.

 

The other thing is typically osteoarthritis usually, not always, but usually gets worse as the day goes on, and people feel worse at night. You know, they're working all day, working hard, and they come home, and they're just wiped out. Their joints feel terrible. Typically, with things like rheumatoid arthritis, the morning is the worst time. Certainly there's variations. Again, this is not an end-all, be-all, but this is sort of the general pattern that we see in both of these conditions.

 

Jamie Nicole: I can definitely attest to that. For clarification on the last one you mentioned, juvenile arthritis. How do we distinguish growing pains or injuries or pains in the joints that are from overuse from probably sports that a kid plays when they're in middle school and high school versus something that may be more related to arthritis?

 

Dr. Lesley Jackson: Kids with arthritis can present really differently than adults with arthritis. It can be tricky to really even consider that something abnormal could be going on, but you want to look for red, hot, swollen joints. Sometimes kids will be in sports and active and all the wonderful things that kids do, but if they start limping... You know, that's one of the first signs that my pediatric rheumatology colleagues will report, is: “You know, they were fine, but they started limping,” and they maybe couldn't really describe what was going on. But the parents noticed that as the first symptom, and they brought them in and they found that they had swelling and fluid in their knee and ended up getting referred to rheumatology.

 

Again, like I mentioned before, some of the hallmarks are going to be a red, hot, swollen joint, inflammation in the eyes, fevers, rashes, any of these things, you'll want to get checked out by your primary care doctor.

 

In terms of different types of juvenile arthritis, it can present in different ways, too. There's not a single type. Some kids will just have one joint involved, and we call that "oligoarthritis." So, they just have a knee or a wrist or an elbow. Sometimes they can have a lot of joints involved. This was actually the case for me.

 

So, I developed what we call "polyarticular," where multiple joints are involved, when I was 14. I was a very active 14-year-old; I did competitive dance and soccer, and over the course of about two months, I developed joint pain, swelling, redness, so all of those hallmarks, in multiple joints. And I had a lot of trouble sleeping because of the joint pain. So, my parents got me checked out, and it ended up with me having juvenile arthritis.

 

So that type of arthritis sometimes can progress, and it can even continue into adulthood, which has also been the case for me. And luckily, we have fantastic treatments for this. But sometimes it can progress into adulthood, and sometimes it kind of burns out, and you're on adequate treatment, and the joint symptoms resolve, and they do great.

 

And then there's other types where kids can develop this arthritis, and then they can get fevers with it, and rashes, and other organs involved. And sometimes those kids can be really sick, unfortunately, and they have to be in the hospital. And they need stronger medicines in the short term to kind of help them get over this acute illness.

 

And then we talked a little bit about psoriatic arthritis. Kids can develop psoriatic arthritis too, which some of the symptoms that we talked about in the adult, a lot of them will have very similar symptoms, too, as a child. You can also have the systemic juvenile arthritis, and that can present with joint symptoms, but you also are going to have other symptoms like fevers, rashes. Sometimes they'll have fluid, they'll have inflammation with fluid around the heart or around the lungs. These kids are hospitalized, and they have to have aggressive treatment, so that's a little bit different. But sometimes you don't see some of these really obvious findings.

 

And that kind of gets to what you were talking about: that really, sometimes, these autoimmune conditions are sort of invisible to other people, and these kids might feel really awful, and they might be in a lot of pain, and they're really tired, and they just don't feel good, but outwardly they look normal. And so, it can be really hard on kids and hard on their families to go through this. I think it's really important to make sure that teachers are aware of this, and school administrators are aware of this. That these kids are going to have good days and bad days, and we just try to support them.

 

Jamie Nicole: So, no matter what type of arthritis someone has, what are the most important things they should understand?

 

Dr. Lesley Jackson: That's a great question. So, I always recommend you talk to your doctor about the best treatment approach. Try to be open-minded. Ask questions. So, we're here to give you the best options that we can, and we want you to be informed. And a lot of that comes from asking us questions. So, definitely ask questions.

 

Your treatment should be individualized. Your treatment will be different than every other person, because everybody is a little different. And then always the goal is to decrease this inflammation and more damage from happening in the future. So, a lot of the treatment strategies are focused on those two factors. If we're recommending certain treatments for RA, really, the goal is to decrease the inflammation and try to prevent more damage from happening down the road. Those would be kind of some of the key things I would think about.

 

Jamie Nicole: Awesome, thank you. Are there any common myths or misconceptions related to arthritis that you would like to clear up? Like, for example, the misconception that all arthritis is the same. Is there anything else that you hear from patients, assumptions that they make?

 

Dr. Lesley Jackson: I hear a lot of patients feel that they did something to cause this to happen, and that is not the case. If you have developed lupus, or rheumatoid arthritis, or gout, you didn't do anything. There's nothing you could have done, to the best of our knowledge at this point, to prevent that from happening. It's just something that happens.

 

Our best evaluation at this point, the best data that we have, is that there's genetic component that sort of predisposes somebody, and then potentially, some sort of environmental trigger that just triggered the immune system to respond in this way. But there's nothing you could have done to prevent this. And the best thing to do is talk about what are the best strategies to treat and move forward from there. But I hear that a lot. I hate to hear that because I think it puts this burden on patients and doesn't need to be there.

 

Jamie Nicole: Is there anything else you'd like to add that we have not covered already? What do you want or wish that more people knew?

 

Dr. Lesley Jackson: Just a few things to keep in mind. In addition to speaking to your doctor about treatments, don't forget about some of the other factors that affect inflammation. And this goes with the autoimmune conditions we talked about. It can affect gout, osteoarthritis... But there's some important factors to consider.

 

You know, if you're smoking, try to quit smoking or cut back. That's really pro-inflammatory. Sugar, a lot of sugar in the diet, that's really pro-inflammatory. So sometimes cutting back on the sugar, especially the sugar-sweetened beverages. And then treating other conditions. If you're diabetic or have metabolic syndrome, overweight, keep working on some of these other things, too, because it all can affect inflammation. And you want to do everything you can to decrease the inflammation that's related to the RA, certainly with medications, but there's other things that can affect quality of life as well.

 

Jamie Nicole: And then also, too, goes into the point you made earlier about logging. If they can sometimes make a connection between what they're eating, whether it's processed sugar, some of the activities that they're doing, smoking, whatever, and see how that impacts their joints and their body and their pain.

 

PROMO: The Arthritis Foundation’s Live Yes! Connect Groups are empowering support groups that bring people together for informative events and engaging activities. Peer-run and volunteer-led, they offer a place of understanding and encouragement and cover all kinds of topics. Find a group that matches your interests at connectgroups.arthritis.org.

 

Jamie Nicole: For this episode, we asked social media followers: When you were first diagnosed with arthritis, what was the most confusing part for you? I'm going to read a few of their responses, and maybe you can weigh in on some of those. We have one from Abigail, who says, "I was diagnosed with osteoarthritis at 17 and have had multiple surgeries since. No one else in my family had issues that early." So, her question is, "Why me?"

 

Dr. Lesley Jackson: I wish I had a good answer for you. I will say that your story is not unique, and sometimes we do hear patients develop some of these conditions really early on, and no one else in their family has it. It can feel really isolating for patients. I would encourage her just to keep following up with her doctor, asking these questions, keeping a log of her symptoms. There could be something else going on. You know, it's hard to say, but her doctor is the best person to answer that.

 

The other thing that can be really helpful to a lot of people that are going through these symptoms, where they may have defined this as a condition like rheumatoid arthritis or they may not have made a diagnosis yet, is to try to connect with other people that are going through the same thing. There are a lot of resources online, and in person, there are support groups. Hearing other people's stories and sharing that. Sharing your story can be really empowering and can help with that feeling of isolation, that you're the only one going through this. That can help a lot. I would encourage her to reach out to her peers that might be going through challenges similarly, because that can be really helpful.

 

Jamie Nicole: Absolutely. And she didn't say how old she was now. She just said that she was diagnosed with 17. But just to echo what you said, the Arthritis Foundation has a lot of awesome resources on their site that she can tap into. And so, the next question I'm going to ask is from Richard. He says, "I was diagnosed at 31. At first, I had no idea what it was. My feet were swelling up all the time; no shoes were comfortable to wear. I couldn't walk, and people in my surroundings thought I was just making things up." So, I guess it's more of a statement and not a particular question. How do you deal with a diagnosis and sharing that with others? Because again, you mentioned earlier, a lot of times, it's invisible.

 

Dr. Lesley Jackson: It's a great question, and that is a really challenging situation because a lot of our conditions start when people are younger, when we don't expect people to have arthritis. The general population doesn't know that kids and young adults can get arthritis, too, but they can. Spreading awareness is a big part of that. A big part of what the Arthritis Foundation does is spreading awareness. I would recommend starting with your family and really having an open and honest conversation with your family so that you can feel more comfortable sharing the experience. And then expanding that to your friends.

 

People won't know unless you tell them. I'm not necessarily advocating that you have to tell everyone. You should go at your own comfort level, but if you feel like it's helpful and empowering, you might be surprised about how open people are if they know that you're having a hard time. People are, I think, more receptive and more empathetic than sometimes we realize. If they know that you're having a hard time, that might be a lot easier to kind of move forward if they're aware of what's going on.

 

Jamie Nicole: Absolutely. And then also another plug for the Arthritis Foundation. There are a lot of resources, and oftentimes, it's hard for us to explain what we don't understand completely ourselves. So, just sharing out some of those research articles or blogs or podcast episodes to others, and letting others who know more about it explain, like yourself, doctor, is also helpful.

 

To wrap up our episodes, we always like to ask our guest the top three takeaways. So, I'll ask you yours, and then I'll follow up with my three takeaways from this conversation.

 

Dr. Lesley Jackson: Absolutely. So, the first one I would point out is specifically in people that have some of these autoimmune conditions like rheumatoid arthritis or lupus or psoriatic arthritis. So, after you have this diagnosis, one of the biggest concerns that patients have, which is an understandable concern, is concerns about the medications that we use to treat them. Because every medication, anything you put in your body, has potential side effects. And many people have a lot of concerns about the potential side effects from these medicines.

 

But when you're considering whether or not to try a medicine, always consider also the potential effects of not taking a medicine. A lot of the medications that we have for rheumatoid arthritis are life-changing, and they can help people live a wonderful quality of life. I personally have been on medicine for rheumatoid arthritis for about 20 years now, and I'm so grateful for it.

 

If you have concerns about medicines, ask your doctors questions. What is the real risk of this versus the risk of not treating your condition? So always kind of think about it from two perspectives when you make your decision. The second thing I would mention, that sometimes it's the little things that can help a lot. Healthy diet, exercise, stopping smoking if you're smoking, losing weight. These things can be helpful, too.

 

And then the third thing I would mention, sort of a big takeaway, is these conditions are not easy. A lot of them are invisible. We talked a lot about that. But keep in mind you're not alone, and there's a lot of resources out there, support groups, and that can be really empowering to help you get through some of these challenging times to talk to others that are going through a similar process.

 

Jamie Nicole: So, for me, I would just like to reiterate that this journey is not linear. There are going to be ebbs and flow. Even when you are diagnosed, you're still going to have those joint issues and not want to go to the gym or not want to walk outside. But all of those things are important in your journey. Make sure that you get connected. Because going through this journey with others who actually understand, because they're going through it. Those people may not be in your family, and it makes a world of difference.

 

The third one kind of ties into what we were saying already throughout the podcast: the importance of logging and making sure that you're tracking your symptoms. And with that, I would like to say thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today, Dr. Jackson. We appreciate you taking your time out of your schedule to provide our listeners with this information that is so important on our journey with arthritis. So, thank you, and you all have a wonderful rest of your day.

 

Dr. Lesley Jackson:

Thank you very much. Happy to be here. Take care.

 

PODCAST CLOSING:

The Live Yes! With Arthritis podcast is independently produced by the Arthritis Foundation. Gifts from people like you make our podcast and other life-changing resources possible. You can donate at arthritis.org/donate. This podcast aims to help people living with arthritis and chronic pain live their best life. For a transcript and show notes, go to arthritis.org/podcast. Subscribe, rate and review us wherever you get your podcasts. If you subscribe through Spotify, leave a comment on their platform, letting us know what you think about this episode. And stay in touch!