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Many of you with RA will have pain and stiffness in your hands and feet. Unfortunately, with RA, it can lead to neck or hip pain too. It may be worthwhile having these joints assessed with our physiotherapists who will balance whether your symptoms have flared or whether your disease is well controlled. There are simple things you can try to take the load off certain joints. We will look at your posture and positions that may be more suited for you. We will look at how you walk whilst being able to recommend braces or perhaps footwear that can alleviate some pain.

Are you waking up stiff in the morning or during the night? Have you been shown specific exercises to help relieve that morning stiffness and maintain mobility throughout the day?

If not, let us assess how well you move - your spine, hips and neck. We can create can appropriate program specific to you and then follow up regularly to make sure your exercises care being performed correctly.

You will be provided access to a portal where you can watch all the exercises that you need to do and together we can track whether you do them and whether you need some extra help.

Many of our patients also get pain in various tendons throughout the body. As you know, this is part of having diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, psoriatic arthritis and inflammatory bowel disease. Again, these tendons can get more inflamed during a flare or they can be chronically weakened due to having disease for many years. We can assess this and give you tips about bracing, footwear, modifying what you do and how you do it, potentially giving you some relief. This is something we see commonly and if we can work closely with your rheumatologist, collectively, we hope to make a significant difference to your symptoms.

We know many people who present with Psoriatic Arthritis also have knee pain and swelling. If you are seeing a rheumatologist to help control your disease, let us help you with your knees. We can assess how well you move, see where your restrictions are, and understand what activities your knees are stopping you from doing. We appreciate you may be afraid to walk long distances or do exercise from fear of making things worse. However, we would like to work with you to help you regain the confidence and trust in your body so that you can do more in your life.

Firstly, we hope you have access to a rheumatologist who is monitoring you and your disease. If you are starting to get more stiff and you seem to be less active than before, let’s chat. I’m sure you know that you should be doing exercises for mobility. I wonder whether you knew that strength exercises are also recommended for someone with Ankylosing Spondylitis. At the same time, cardiovascular exercise for aerobic fitness is equally important for someone with AS. Now, if you didn’t know that exercise for mobility, strength and cardiovascular fitness gives people with AS better outcomes, please book in now. There is much you can do for yourself on top of taking the right medications.