Some of my findings for how to feel better with Rheumatoid Arthritis

Sep 17, 2022

7 min read

Okay, so first of all, we'll be using this blog post to help you better understand rheumatoid arthritis either for yourself or for a loved one or maybe some of the clients that you're working with.

Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic systemic inflammatory condition. It is an immuno condition as well. So it's an autoimmune disease. What that means is, it's a, probably maladaptive might be the wrong word, but it's where your immune system is fighting itself. So it's kind of working against itself. There can be a lot of reasons why it might come to be that you have rheumatoid arthritis. But one of the main ones is a genetic link. It may be sitting dormant in your genetics and then it only requi

Now, one of the most annoying things, if you are a rheumatoid arthritis sufferer, is the fact that whilst you do always have it, you can have times of exacerbation and then relative remission. So that means that you have times when it has a flare-up as such where your symptoms feel worse, and tiredness is worse. Then you can have times where it pretty much feels like you may not have rheumatoid arthritis, or it can just always feel like it's there and just sometimes feel a whole bunch worse. Whi

Now a little bit about me, not to talk about myself too much, but I studied my Ph.D. through the school of physiotherapy at the University of Otago, and my Ph.D. was in overcoming barriers to exercise in people with chronic illness with focus on musculoskeletal conditions. One of the groups that I worked with is people with rheumatoid arthritis. So I am equipped to know a little bit more than your average Joe about rheumatoid arthritis. I have seen a number of patients with rheumatoid arthritis.

So the ACSM guidelines were saying to be active for 30 minutes a day, and to do that every day or six days a week. From that, that exercise is like a bell curve where more sessions does not equal more benefit after about four sessions a week so every other day exercising and less benefit derived after 45 minutes. Well, all of these things are very general guidelines, and it does depend on the intensity that you're working out at. But these were the typical guidelines that I went in for structuri

The goal was just to participate three times a week and this had a significant benefit.

People found quite a big difference in how their condition was feeling because being more active and then being able to take control of their session meant that they were more likely to participate and then from there their ability to perform in tests of function, not just in activities of daily living but also in fitness tests increased but some of them also found side effects of losing weight as well.

Losing weight has also been shown not just to help reduce inflammation in the body, but it also helps to reduce the impact on joints. Also, read my post on how to lose weight safely and effectively. So there were a number of factors that proved to be very beneficial for people in these groups for participating in exercise and although not specifically studied by my exercise intervention, when you do exercise, and you have this kind of structure into your week in your day to day life, sometimes a

But these are things that helped people to feel much better in terms of their condition, but also their energy levels for the day they were able to accomplish more in their day-to-day life. They also experienced mood benefits as well, so they felt like they were in a better mood because they felt more in control of their condition. On top of that, they felt like they could be more pleasant towards their family which is a really nice side effect of doing exercise. Exercise also helps you to sleep

So these things can't be ruled out as contributing factors, but addressing the following can make you feel better overall.

Exercising regularly, but also knowing how to tailor your exercise based on how you're feeling for that particular day. The courses that we run have specific exercise regimes that you can follow and teach you how to adapt based on how you're feeling. So getting some exercise from a professional.

Eating a nutritionally dense diet having a lot of fiber as well as a variety of fruits and vegetables which will help to reduce inflammation in the body, and protein to help repair muscles as well as good fats which help reduce inflammation so a nice balanced diet.

Reducing alcohol which helps to increase the quality of your sleep.

Prioritizing the right amount of rest. So not just eight hours but five really good sleep cycles, which it's hard to determine but you should be waking up feeling well rested and not feeling like you're in a whole bunch of pain as a result of not sleeping properly or fully.

Have lots of vitamin D, including during winter. Vitamin D is an essential vitamin that comes from sunlight, and you can derive components of it from your food if it's a balanced diet, especially if you're eating fresh, fresh produce.

Going outside. Getting some fresh air grounding, which will help with your mental health as well but also on top of that getting some sunlight on your skin because vitamin D actually almost acts like a hormone in the body where it helps to trigger a cascade of really important processes when it comes to your hormones. When it comes to just your general sense of well-being and the exercise outside such as walking around the block can really help with your mindset as well. So that our perceived le

Making sure that you have a really solid support system, or community of people around you that understand what you're going through and are supportive with how you're feeling each day and want to check in with you can be super important as well.