Learning your trigger points

Learning Your Trigger Points

Suzie Edward May
Member, Arthritis Australia National Consumer Reference Group (rheumatoid arthritis)
Author of ‘Arthritis, pregnancy and the path to parenthood’

Rheumatoid arthritis is a very unpredictable disease. One day I can be completely well and the next day I can be bedridden. So there is a level of unpredictability which makes it very difficult to live with. It makes it very difficult to plan. But I guess what I have learned to do is develop strategies to minimise that happening.

To recognise what my triggers are so I know when I’m potentially going to flare. Certainly there are times when I flare for no apparent reason and it still flaws me. It still is really difficult. But I’ve learnt to understand that that is part of what I live with. That is part of my disease and I believe it’s about being flexible with your life and taking each day as it comes, and realising that there are going to be difficult days but there are also going to be really positive, good days. It took me a number of years to recognise what my triggers were. For years I felt that there was no connection with food for example, and people would say, oh you know there’s certain foods that make your health worse and I would say no, I’m fine, I can eat anything I want.

But after a number of years of denying, for example, sugar; because I didn’t want to cut sugar out of my life. I ate a brownie at a café one day and I was bedridden for four days afterwards. It suddenly hit me, I finally got it through my head, that sugar is something that triggers me and it may not trigger the next person, but for me it is a trigger and it’s something that I minimise or I still eat but I make a conscious choice to eat. I eat it know that perhaps I may suffer afterwards. The weather, for example, I can tell you when it’s going to rain. Sometimes I’m in a lot of pain and I wonder why on earth I’m in pain and then the next day it’ll rain, and I’ll realise of course, that’s why I was in pain because the rain was coming. Stress is a big trigger for me as well. I need to be very careful about having a good work-life health balance because if I overdo it, if I get overstressed, then that’s a big trigger for my pain for fatigue to increase. So it’s about getting to know your body.

It’s about learning to trust your instincts and learning to trust your body, and being open to seeing patterns in the way that your RA responds to the way you live your life. I think if you can see those triggers or see those patterns, then you can start to understand what your triggers are and then you can then develop strategies to minimise them.