Flares, Joint Pain & Fatigue

When your arthritis and connective tissue disease symptoms suddenly increases to 11 out of 10, you know that you are experiencing a flare.

This unexpected increase in your disease can last a few days or even a week or more. Your symptoms increase and you’re left exhausted from the effort of lifting your head off the pillow in the morning.

Symptoms you may experience may include:

- Increased joint pain, stiffness and swelling

- Extreme tiredness and fatigue

Remember the causes of flares can be:

- Missing medication doses

- After an infection- viral and bacterial

- Smoking

- Period of personal and family stress

- Over doing things after having an operation

- Sun light – for people living with Lupus.

Regardless of how a flare is defined or triggered, the best thing is to being aware of how your body feels and how to manage a flare is the best method for limiting the effects of the flare. Understanding your own personal flare triggers comes with experience and can certainly help with flare management.

Some general self-management strategies for coping with a flare include:

• Rest and relaxation early on

• For a hot swollen joint use cool packs

• For a stiff Joint use a heat pad

• Use aids, for example a walking stick if your knee is a problem

• Wear the right shoes

• Do gentle exercises, to help relieve the stiffness that makes pain worse

• Take your pain medication regularly and at the right dose

• Use hot baths or showers to relieve early morning stiffness and pain

• Let people around you know, so they can understand why you’re not coping as you usually do

Everyone's arthritis pain is different. Arthritis and Connective Tissue diseases can cause acute and chronic pain. Arthritis pain is caused by:

• Inflammation, the process that causes the redness and swelling in your joints 
• Damage to joint tissues caused by the disease process or from wear and tear
• Muscle strain caused by overworked muscles attempting to protect your joints from painful movements
• Fatigue caused by the disease process which can make your pain seem worse and harder to handle

Everyone gets worn out from time to time. But exhaustion that disrupts your daily life and doesn’t get better after a good night’s sleep has its own medical term: fatigue. Fatigue significantly affects the quality of life for people with many forms of arthritis or/ and  connective tissue disease. 

For People living with Arthritis and Connective Tissue diseases , the Fatigue is extreme, sometimes overwhelming, physical and mental tiredness, that doesn’t significantly improve with rest or sleep.

It’s a common problem associated with arthritis or/ and  connective tissue disease and can make other symptoms, such as pain and joint stiffness feel more severe and limiting. It can affect your motivation and your ability to concentrate, this is sometimes described as having brain fog. Some people find it affects their emotional wellbeing making them feel irritable or depressed.

If you do get a flare-up of your condition you should:

• Take regular prescribed painkillers (no more than the recommended dose in a 24hr period)
• Take regular prescribed anti-inflammatory (again no more than the recommended daily dose)
• If you do not wish to or can’t take an oral anti-inflammatory and only 1 or 2 joints are involved then you can use an anti-inflammatory gel/cream
• If joints are swollen then you can use ice on them (cold pack or packet of frozen peas wrapped in a towel, 10-15 mins every 2-3 hours).
• If the joints are stiff but not swollen then heat can be used
• If things do not get better after 7 days then contact us for further advice