Woolie
Senior Member
Just in case you thought we were the only ones having to put up with this crap:
I love how they think the fatigue might respond to "stress modification". Sounds like the tail is wagging the dog here
Having fatigue that makes it overwhelmingly difficult to do your daily activities , and threatens your job or relationships - that's pretty darned stressful. Maybe treat the fatigue and that'll help a lot with the stress!
This short article is available in full here.
The middle bit sounds promising to me. The rest is the usual BS. Although it doesn't explicitly mention negative illness beliefs, I think that's implicit in the suggestion of CBT.The importance of fatigue in RA is underscored by several studies that have concluded that patients may value a day without fatigue as much as a day without pain.
...when the disease is active and patients have a lot of inflammation and pain in their joints, they are less likely to exercise, and exercise is clearly inversely related to fatigability. The more you exercise, the less fatigued you are....patients with RA are more likely to have intercurrent mood disorders, including varying degrees of depression and anxiety. In addition to anhedonia and abulia, common symptoms of depression include pain and fatigability...
From the pharmacologic perspective, there is great interest in determining whether certain agents, such as interleukin-6 inhibitors, may have something more to offer patients with fatigue, and there are some supportive data to suggest that this may be true for some individuals. Clinically meaningful patient-reported benefits on fatigue have been observed in randomized clinical trials with both sarilumab and tocilizumab.
However, patients need more than just pharmacologic intervention. They need wellness interventions, whether this involves coaching on exercise, cognitive behavioral therapy, sleep therapy, and/or stress modification.
I love how they think the fatigue might respond to "stress modification". Sounds like the tail is wagging the dog here
This short article is available in full here.
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