It’s Time to Speak Up: 13 Reasons Why This is Not a Joke

It’s truly frustrating when chronic autoimmune diseases, especially Autoimmune Arthritis, are just kind of pushed aside. Terminal illness blog on tumblr? 10,000+ followers. Chronic illness blog? Why?

“…”Arthritis” Blog? Uh—why? What does Chronic Curve even mean?” is the reaction I get a lot, even from friends.

Why, you ask? This is why:

• There are more than just two kinds of arthritis. There are over 100 and they are all different.
  
  
• Autoimmune arthritis is not an elderly disease. It is not Osteoarthritis. It is not caused by age or wear and tear of the joints
  
  
  
• Autoimmune arthritis means that one’s immune system has outdone itself by attacking the joints and various organs and tissues by mistake, thinking they are foreign pathogens and invaders. It is doing its normal job against the wrong area.
  
  
  
• Autoimmune Arthritis is not just a take an aleve and move on with your day-kind of ordeal. Many patients require long-term, low dose (comparatively speaking) chemotherapy medications via self injection. They lose hair and suffer the same symptoms the same way cancer patients do…only their disease is very rarely advertised appropriately or cared for.
  
  
  
• Many children, as many as 300,000 in the US alone, are affected by a type of arthritis.
  
  
  
• AA can cause blindness, lung disease, heart disease, chronic fevers, fatigue, rash, “secondary brain fog,” joint damage, organ damage, vasculitis, debilitating pain, swelling, and death.
  
  
  
• Autoimmune Arthritis patients have higher mortality rates: “Median life expectancy was shortened an average of 7 years for men and 3 years for women compared to control populations. In more than 5000 patients with rheumatoid arthritis from four centers, the mortality rate was two times greater than in the control population…” (Johns Hopkins)
  
  
  
• Disability is common. According to Johns Hopkins, “patients with rheumatoid arthritis with 60% being unable to work 10 years after the onset of their disease.”

• A flare can occur at any time without warning, or one may flare consistently while symptoms change, but never go away. No patient is the same, but all patients suffer.
  
  
  
  
  
• Many AA patients are seronegative (false-negative blood results) and are misdiagnosed and untreated for years. Many resort to suicide and the physical damage due to no treatment cannot be undone  by the time a diagnosis is reached.
  
  
  
• AA can also be a secondary condition to Lupus and various other conditions.
  
  
  
  
• Per person, research allots to 25$ PER PERSON in Autoimmune Arthritis funding. Go ahead and do some research to find out how that compares to other diseases.
  
  
  
  
• There is no cure.

Now can you tell me these diseases do not deserve apporiate advertising, funding, and education?

Now can you tell me why my disease is not important?

Now can you tell me why my blog is not important?

Now can you tell me chronic illness does not come with its own terminal life sentence?  The only thing certain about these diseases is that there is no certainty, no predictability, no end, and no cure.

I am important
My health is important
This disease is important
And as my disease is invisible and misunderstood to nearly all that I know,
It is my responsibility to help bring it to light.

I hope you make it yours too. Please reblog,