Let Go Of Loneliness

If Arthritis has you feeling isolated, reach out and make connections – for your health’s sake.

- Timothy Gower

There was a time when Nancy Sears wouldn’t have missed the annual trip to Dallas with her girlfriends. “We’d stay in a hotel, laugh, watch movies and shop. Just have a good time,” says Nancy, 65, of Oklahoma City. But then she developed rheumatoid arthritis (RA), which left her limping on swollen, aching knees and battling constant fatigue. From then on, Nancy stayed behind, despite her friends’ pleas that she take along an ice pack and soldier on.

That was 20 years ago, shortly after Nancy was diagnosed. Since then, she’s missed countless weddings and birthday parties and given up attending monthly luncheons with a Christian women’s group – she couldn’t imagine slipping her swollen feet into dress shoes, much less standing for more than a few minutes. “You end up very isolated,” she says. “You feel like the world is going on without you, because you have stepped off.”

Debbie Dombo knows the feeling. “I used to be an outgoing, vivacious person,” says Debbie, 53, of Monroe, North Carolina, who has osteoarthritis (OA), ankylosing spondylitis (AS) and fibromyalgia. “Now I’m a homebody. I have lost my old self, and that makes me really sad.”

“My old self.” Developing arthritis may make you feel as though you’ve had two lives – one before arthritis and one after – and that new life with arthritis can be lonely. Pain, joint damage and withering fatigue can limit your mobility and drain your desire to do anything besides sink into a soft sofa – not exactly a formula for an active social life.