Wendy Favorito, living with arthritis 

I use a number of different strategies to manage my pain and feelings and condition throughout the day and generally throughout my life. One of the key things for me is being positive so I can acknowledge that the condition that I have that arthritis is an awful disease to live with but I'm more interested in being focused on what are the really good things in my life so having a really positive and I guess a thankful out outlook on life helps a lot.

I use my CBT whether I know it I'm doing it consciously or not oh I know that that plays a big part on a daily basis. I use exercise as another tool  for managing my pain and fatigue and general  well-being and is trying to leave it led generally  a really healthy lifestyle so the extension of  the exercises eating well and looking after my  general health and not just my arthritis condition.

Exercise & chronic pain

So my ability to do exercise is obviously  impacted on by my arthritis so I don't run  a marathon and I don't ride a bike but what  I do do on a regular basis and I try to do  this daily is walk for 30 to 45 minutes  a day and what I find this does is that it  helps with my weight management and if I keep my  weight in check then that's less of a strain on  my lower joints which is where my arthritis is  as well. It also i find is great for my mind it  gives me a sense of achievement I feel like  I’m just any other person out there exercising  that I’m just like the rest of the crowd it  gives me a really good thinking time to you  know declutter what's going through my head  and whether that's pain and arthritis related  or not it's just a really good thinking time and I think at a physiological level whenever  I exercise I certainly get that sense of  adrenaline or a release of hormones and I  feel at times euphoric when I've exercised so I  just think participating in any form of exercise  whether it's gentle or vigorous has such a great  role to play in managing arthritis and pain. 

Pacing

Pacing is another strategy that I've learnt  more as an adult I think then as a child I  don't think medically it's ever been taught to  me that pacing is a really critical tool to use  in managing pain and arthritis in general so for  me I recognize that I have a limited capacity in  the day because of pain and fatigue so I need  to prioritize what is it that I want to do so  it's caring for my family is my first priority and  then working is my second priority and everything  else is next in the queue housework socializing  all of that other stuff is the last thing to be done if I've got the energy left so for pacing  I will make sure I limit the number of physical  activities I might do in a day or I will make sure  I can build an a rest at some point so that might  be quite literally lying down in bed and having  asleep or it might be just taking a moment to  sit put my feet up have a cup of tea read a book and  just relax physically but also mentally as well.

Pain medication

Pain medication for me it plays a really big part in how I manage my arthritis as much as  I can put an emphasis on being positive and  doing exercise in being healthy at the end of  the day using pain medication is something  that I can't avoid because of the severity  of my pain I do need to rely on medication. I  was using I guess more complex pain medication  so I could panadeine Forte so something that  wasn't just paracetamol or aspirin based and  I think that I was probably over reliant on that  and it was at that point then when I learnt to  use other strategies as a balance to not just  taking pain medication to get better relief.