January 25th, 2012 by Kelly Young

I know you’ll love this guest post from Dana as we see the collision of her experience with the disease, the measurement of disease activity by her rheumatologist, and the decision to change treatments. She conveys so well the process of making decisions about disease management. This is the whole reason we want to be [...]
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January 23rd, 2012 by Kelly Young

Once upon a time, a family switched insurance companies. Mother went to Target to pickup groceries methotrexate with a $10 coupon. When she went to the counter to pay, the insurance had “denied” coverage for the medicine. In the age of cell phones, mother figured she could cure this problem in a moment right there [...]
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January 20th, 2012 by Kelly Young

My Bear had an appointment to see his terrific pediatrician today again about his swollen finger joints. She was home with a cold, but we waited an hour to see an alternate. The fellow didn’t seem to welcome my questions or opinions. I was in the familiar context of my pediatrician’s office – 6 years [...]
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January 18th, 2012 by Kelly Young

This is a question that people frequently ask. They’ve been to the doctor and were shocked to receive a diagnosis of Rheumatoid Arthritis and a stack of prescriptions. I was the same way when I first learned about Rheumatoid disease: I wanted to be sure I didn’t have something more easily treated. Hey, I live [...]
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January 16th, 2012 by Kelly Young

When I met my first rheumatologist, I left with a handful of prescriptions. One for folic acid. Really? Did I need a prescription for a vitamin? Doc said “to make sure it’s enough, yes, it’s a lot more than a daily allowance.” I already knew why over the counter supplements (OTC) are not considered as reliably [...]
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January 11th, 2012 by Kelly Young

Really important stuff that I read last week, while researching pain scales, will not be on the blog today. I’ve been thinking a lot about how differently a disease affects us and whether we can honestly communicate about that. When Dana asked for resolutions at the weekly #HCSM (healthcare communications in social media) chat, I said I [...]
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January 9th, 2012 by Kelly Young

If you either live with or study a rheumatological disease, then you know that pain is a ubiquitous symptom and an essential factor in evaluating disease activity. “Pain is a most important indicator of clinical status in rheumatoid arthritis (RA),” Arthritis and Rheumatism. While pain is the most obvious sign that something is not right, [...]
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January 3rd, 2012 by Kelly Young

Three years ago, I saw Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) patients insisting that the name of the disease needed to be changed. They argued that until the “a” word is removed from the name, confusion about the disease will continue. When asked, I said that we could not wait around for that to happen; let’s work for [...]
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