Dear Members,

If you have rheumatoid arthritis (RA), it is very likely that you will experience chronic fatigue at some stage.

Chronic fatigue is not like tiredness. It can last for days and no amount of sleep will relieve it. It can come on without warning and prevent people from doing planned activities and everyday tasks.

One of the problems with fatigue is that it is an invisible symptom. Those who come into contact with you may have no idea of how you are feeling unless you tell them.

To coincide with the launch of our second national RA Awareness Week in June, the National Rheumatoid Arthritis Society will be publishing some new research to better articulate the range of impacts that chronic fatigue has on peoples' lives with recommendations for government action.

The information gathered from this online survey will also help to inform a separate booklet on fatigue to help people better understand and cope with this invisible symptom.

Please help by completing this survey. The more we know about your experience, the more we can do to support people with rheumatoid arthritis.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/chronic-fatigue

Many thanks in advance for helpling us with this survey.

Kind regards
Emma

Actually. there was a topic that wasn't covered, and I only realised after I had submitted the survey.

Some account needs to be taken of the fatigue side-effect from drugs used to treat the disease or pain. My drugs include the following, all of which report drowsiness as a side-effect:

Azathioprine
Amitryptiline
Codeine
MST Continuus
Ora Morphine

Also there's a significant cohort of people who have an associated auto-immune disease, such as Ulcerative Colitis which also has fatigue as a major symptom, of which I am one.

Poor ol' you Paul, with that lot you are taking I'd never be awake

Good survey, as well planned as it could have been. You'll never get all the questions you want on it.
I remember when doing one of my degrees, I have to create a questionnaie - it's hugely difficult to do

Gogs

Interesting survey. Been well in the last 7 days so couldn't really express everything but managed to put my feelings across in the second half.

Angie