Learn here about how to talk to your loved ones and friends about living with arthritis.

Living with a chronic condition like arthritis can feel like an isolating experience. If you do not have the support and understanding you need, managing your pain and other arthritis symptoms can seem even harder. But to receive this support, you need to talk to the people in your life about what it is like for you to experience arthritis. This can be difficult, especially if you're a generally private person or if you have been raised to believe medical matters are best spoken of as little as possible. Reaching out may be hard to do, but here are some ideas to help you start.

Start small

When your spouse or a friend asks how you are, try to give an answer that’s a little more honest than "fine." It's tempting to brush off other people's worries about you, but it can bring you closer together if you acknowledge the way you're really feeling. You might say the day has been particularly exhausting, or that your hand arthritis is now acting up and it's made things more difficult than they tend to be most of the time. These might be hard things for you to say, but they are manageable pieces of information for someone else to hear. This may open a more extensive conversation, or you may simply hear that your loved one is sorry that you're in pain. Either way, it's a good step for beginning to talk about how arthritis impacts you with the people who are most important in your life.

Describe your daily life

If your loved one wants to know about your arthritis, it's easy to give him or her a definition that's more or less like what you'd hear from a doctor. This is useful knowledge to have, but you may want to consider giving him or her a description of what it is like for you personally to have arthritis. You might say you're very stiff in the morning but loosen up by the middle of the day, or that you need to plan your schedule very carefully to avoid becoming fatigued. You could even discuss what you miss if arthritis has meant significant changes to your lifestyle. In this way, you can help people who are important to you imagine just what it is like to have your experience every day, rather than give them a definition they could easily acquire from books or the Internet.

For more on coping with arthritis:

Five Ways to Maintain a Positive Outlook with Arthritis
Helping Children to Cope with a Parent’s Chronic Illness
Chronic Communication at Work: Work Stress, Life Stress and Your Health