5 Things People With Rheumatoid Arthritis Want You to Know

3. “A nap isn’t going to make me feel less tired.”

Chronic fatigue is linked to RA and affects 89% of people who have this condition. “Tired doesn’t begin to describe how I feel if I’m having a bad day or bad week,” says Barbara Searles, author of Kick Pain in the Kitchen.

4. “A pill or diet won’t cure me.”

Cutting processed foods and gluten can ease your symptoms. “After I was first diagnosed, people would come up to me and say things like, ‘You should go gluten-free!’ or ‘You should try krill oil,’ like that would fix everything,” Searles says.

5. “RA affects your whole family.”

Joy Ross, 26, was diagnosed with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis and inflammation of the eye, or uveitis, at age 3. She went blind in 2008 and in the same year her daughters were diagnosed with RA. “It was so scary when I learned that they had the same genetic disease that cost me my vision,” says Ross, who lives in Portland, OR.