Comments on: Rheumatoid Arthritis Pain Is Not Our Only Pain

By: Belinda Langley RN

Belinda Langley RN — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 15:39:24 +0000

I am a nurse and I have RA. For about 10 years, hospitals have migrated to computer charting. When I first started having symptoms of RA, I was a night shift nursing supervisor at a hospital. Part of my responsibilities were to go to the pharmacy during the “off hours”, when they were closed to get medications for the newly admitted patients, or new physician orders. This required the use of keys to open the door to the pharmacy. I cringed every time my phone rang for a request because it was incredibly painful to turn a key. I was also responsible for computing the man hours per patient day and entering this information in the computer in an excel program, requiring much mouse usage and typing the numbers. I remember typing with pencils because my fingers were so painful that I would cry. Luckily, I had my own office and could cry in private. Today, I work in intensive care. I am grateful for the use of computers in my profession, as I can remember writing my narrative nursing notes, and wonder if I could do that any more. The computer is still difficult at times, especially with certain programs that won’t allow you to open a full page and so require a lot of scrolling, typing, more scrolling… this requires a lot of lateral movement with the wrists, sometimes the tapping on keys jars the joints in my fingers, no matter how gently you tap the keys. The wrists resting on the keyboard places pressure on the radial nerve area increasing the painful numbness that goes with the wrist inflammation. Another condition that affects me is Thoracic outlet syndrome. This is caused by inflammation from RA that narrows the channel that allows the nerves, veins and arteries to pass from the neck into the shoulder and down into the arms and hands. With thoracic outlet syndrome, it becomes unbearable to have my arms out in front of me for more than just a few minutes at a time (I can’t even eat a whole ear of corn without experiencing the pain and numbness. That is how little time it takes for the compression of these structures to cause excruciating pain.) When performing things such as driving a car, typing on the computer, performing bandage changes, sometimes even eating, my hands become discolored and mottled, painfully numb; both hot and cold, throbbing as if someone was hitting my funny bone repeatedly with a tire iron. Typing on the computer has become challenging for me at times. I deal with it by considering that I am grateful that I rarely have to grasp a pen with fingers that won’t curl around the pen. When you have RA, you become an expert in finding ways to achieve the essential tasks. Sometimes I look absolutely ridiculous with some of the “inventions” that I have come up with to assist me with ADLs. RA sufferers are very creative in finding solutions, and we are met with very high standards of others. They are glad that you found a way to accomplish the task, but they criticize that they have to watch you “suffer”. Sorry it’s so difficult for them.

By: wirechief

wirechief — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 14:54:47 +0000

The ugly and miss-understood pain of Rheumatoid Arthritis Why is this disease ignored by our employers, family and friends until someone gets so sick that they cannot work or
perform the daily activities that others take for granted.
I think that understanding pain itself is part of the reason, it cannot easily be described, and people tend to ignore those things that cannot be easily measured or seen.
I worked in a auto parts plant for 10 years and many times could not perform the work because of pain, it was put off as well he is just old, they didnt understand this disease affects old and young. At the time I did not know my pain was being caused by RA even though I saw the companys triage
, they said I have arthritis and gave me asprin and sent me on my way, my choice was to limp through the night or go home without pay.

By: Kelly Young

Kelly Young — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 20:29:48 +0000

Good point Avery. That is what I call the Usage Principle. This job requires a lot of typing too. Every day is not the same, but my fingers are usually in a lot of pain with a couple of them swollen up. They do feel a lot better when I take rare days off. Also, my speed is a fraction of what it once was.

By: Avery

Avery — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 17:58:32 +0000

I’m curious as to the duration of the typing exercises.

Most days, I do pretty well with my typing still, though it is definitely painful. I used to be extremely accurate, and now I have more errors, but not an excessive amount. My speed is still better than average. However, I can’t type for nearly the duration I used to maintain. And the longer I type, the worse the typing gets.

A series of brief typing exercises, especially if there were short breaks in between, would show my keyboard skills as “unaffected” also–but I cannot maintain that level of performance, or do work that requires me to type all day.

I also take issue with the fact that the test subjects used a computer for an average of 18 hours a week. Anyone doing clerical work is typing MUCH more than that.

No where in that study do I see any reference to an assessment of pain. Maybe the RAers were able to perform all the exercises, but were they painful? To what degree? how many times would they be able to perform that exercise before the pain inhibited or prevented it?

In my college classes, I got special permission to type essay tests because writing them by hand in the time allotted was impossible. But an hour or two of non-stop typing left my hands pretty much useless for the rest of the day. So I’d like to see a study that tested whether or not RA patients could type for a realistic amount of time for a desk job, then go home and cook dinner, wash dishes, take care of kids, etc. If you have to choose between working and doing the basic tasks of everyday life, you are still not able to work, regardless of how fast you can type.

By: Angela

Angela — Mon, 24 May 2010 02:59:13 +0000

I’m in!

By: doctorakerkar

doctorakerkar — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 10:22:48 +0000

A decent/ more practical/ useful article in the same series. "The Association Between Rheumatoid Arthritis Related Structural Changes in Hands and Computer Keyboard Operation" link

By: Pamela Montgomery

Pamela Montgomery — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 13:24:36 +0000

Typing – Not affected>>>> LOL someone trying to joke????
I may have mentioned on here before that my job is answering emails for a Fortune 50 Company. Before RA I typed 100 wpm with very few, if any, errors. Now not only is the speed nowhere near the 100wpm mark, the errors make me crazy!!! Yes there is ‘spellcheck’ however when you type “you” and men “your” it will not catch it………….and many other words are the same.
The only thing worse than living with RA is seeing/hearing/readin/feeling the lack of understanding from people who really should do better research. Every single part of my body and everything I do is affected by my RA – EVERYTHING………………..(can you tell I am not having one of my better days?)
Today I am REALLY REALLY tired and I don’t know if I have the energy to do any more than this.

It will get better and I know it will it’s just the waiting that makes me crazy!!

Be well Warriors – Cherish the good days!

By: Kelly Young

Kelly Young — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 12:42:29 +0000

Thanks for coming to read the post. Now that you’ve read the whole post, I guess you can see why we reacted strongly when you brought up the typing study – we called it junk. It has taken me several minutes to type this comment error free.

I appreciate what you say. I don’t see how this disease can be properly treated otherwise.

By: doctorakerkar

doctorakerkar — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 11:33:17 +0000

Dear Kelly,

This is a perfect example of the Physician- Patient divide & the fact that text book RA is differet from real life RA. That is why I pointed out the study to you.

Whatever the study tried to prove; I’m sure that not a single RAer/ anybody who has experienced the pain of a RAer would ever accept the findings.

We need more Physician- patient combined initiatives to understand RA better.

By: Kelly Young

Kelly Young — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 13:50:16 +0000

Irene,
I have thought about who reads these too. I am beginning to think that all these articles do contribute to the actual conception of RA in our world. Having doctors & the public confused about RA is making it more difficult for us on several fronts. For one, where is the push for a “cure” for just a few aches & pains?

Your patience lesson is so true. Hard to learn & accept, but correct. I wrote on another post: Not practice makes perfect. But, patience makes perfect. (Sometimes we can do it – it just takes a long time.)