October 12 is World Arthritis Day. I don’t watch TV, I don’t follow the news, so I can’t say if this day was marked in a particular way in Romania, but today I googled “world arthritis day” and found out. An article on Agerpres, 5 lines on EuropaFM and a slightly longer article on Cuvântul Liber (in which “ankylosing spondylosis” is misspelled), all taken from the website www.eular.org (European Alliance of Associations for Rheumatology). I apologize if I am wrong, but that was about all the information and awareness in our country.
This year’s slogan was “it’s in your hands, take action”. “The theme aims to encourage people with arthritis, their carers, families and people around them to take every opportunity to take steps to improve the lifestyle of those affected,” it says on the website’s official page mentioned above. Also on this day, the site launched the what is your #RheumaPainPoint? survey, which arthritis sufferers, and not only, are asked to complete, a survey related to everyone’s experience with rheumatology and workers in this field.
It is also highlighted there that the number of rheumatologists and medical personnel involved in the care of arthritis and musculoskeletal diseases has recently decreased, while the number of patients is increasing. The family doctor usually takes care of them, but they don’t have the training to do it.
Rheumatic diseases, arthritis, are the second cause of illness in the world, after cardiovascular diseases, and involve the most comorbidities.
Although the general impression is that arthritis is the disease of old age, more than 30% of those affected are young people whose disease affects their ability to work.
Rheumatoid arthritis is mentioned everywhere as the main autoimmune rheumatic disease, ankylosing spondylitis is mentioned only in passing, often being confused with spondylosis (I would be rich if I had a penny for how many times I have been asked: do you have spondylosis? Does it hurt at the back of your head?). Patients with ankylosing spondylitis are equal in number to those with rheumatoid arthritis. These are the main autoimmune rheumatic diseases, but bone and joint damage occurs in many other autoimmune diseases as a comorbidity.
We patients with autoimmune rheumatic diseases are young. We are 20, 30, 40 years old. And there are many of us. We want everything other people want: a family, children, a job, a career, a normal life. We can adjust to life with one (or more) autoimmune disease, but we need help. From doctors (rheumatologists, balneologists, neurologists, physiotherapists, psychologists, cardiologists, endocrinologists, nutritionists) and from related medical staff. And we need understanding. We may be in pain and be slower in our movements at times, but we are as capable as anyone of leading a normal life. Because life “is in our hands and we take action”!
If you want, you can also read the article written from pain, in which I say how a patient with an autoimmune rheumatic disease perceives life and medical care.
