LOL Sounds like your husband had bad timing! I think he was trying to help, but telling somewone suffering with RA that they need to go to the gym is downright dangersous! I am in the same boat as you. I work full time and I cook and try to keep the house up and go to church and grocery shopping. That pretty much takes all my energy. I take my husband with me when I go to the grocery store so that he can help me with the groceries. Please try not to hurt your huband. LOL He was probably just trying to help.

Blessings,
V

Now tell him to keep googling and look up when to exercise and when to rest when you have RA and you are in a flare. Tell him he stopped reading before he got to the end of the story and therefore missed the whole idea behind the theory on exercising for RA. When he is done reading all the info that he can find on RA and exercise, tell him he going with you to see your Rheumy at your next appt and that you won't take no for an answer since he has decided he knows more than your doctor does about how best to treat your RA! Yes, this would have ticked me off as well. Next time he is in bed with a bad cold or the flu, suggest he go to the gym so he will feel better. LOL!

I love that idea! Next time he is sick I am going to do just that. haha. Perhaps I should sign him up for a bootcamp first thing in the am the next time he works night shifts too. That way he will understand a little of the fatigue that I deal with.

all sick people are the repositories for the words of wisdom that the sick person would never have fathomed in his/her entire life, just never....because the RA you know it affects our ability to make reasonable decisions on the activities of daily life, such as when we have the get up and go to do a couple miles on the treadmill or not....

you want my massage table? I'll ship it. then you can tell him, "oh no honey I heard deep tissue massage works best, how about every night when you get out of work? it will be a great work out for YOU dear (and by the way, your beer belly is getting a tad larger don't you think?: and while we are on it, what were your cholesterol numbers lately?) - so as I was saying you can complete a full body massage on me nightly, I think this would help immensely and I appreciate your being on my team"

let me know

Ros

Please do ship it. I would love to have nightly massages haha. As for him though, he is a marathon runner and he comes from a family of health nuts. His sis is a dietician and and his mother is a personal trainer. So he has this idea that as long as you excerise and eat right you should be fine. His sister even went so far once as to blame me for my youngest daughters allergies because 'gasp' I drank tap water while I was pregnant with her. LOL!

I have a wonderful remedy. Smash his hand with a hammer while he is sleeping and then when he wakes up to horrible, shocking pain give him a stress ball to squeeze for exercise until it feels better!

Um, imp- RA or no RA, fat or thin... men should NEVER suggest a woman go to the gym.

Roena - I like your thought. I think I will post it on my fridge. Thanks!

As a guy I have to respond. Please don't be upset, men get really upset when they are unable to do anything. You should use this as an excuse to start talking to him about it. Its not just you with the RA, he has to live with it as well, and it is extremely painful to a guy not to be able to take care of you and help you. Whether he understands what the problem is or not.

Ask him to help with the exercise and mix it in with massage. The best part of life is sharing with someone, but most people don't learn this -- and you do have to learn it. It will take time and it will not be easy but he would be happy to massage and help you do small exercises. And remember as long as he is there the pain is not as important. So use him and push yourself a little to get stronger.

that SO sounds like something a husband would say! I thoroughly enjoyed all the replies ! Good stuff, gals ; lol.
now, to the man who replied, Grashopa, I do know what you are talking about !
After many years of getting upset at my husband's responses to things like this I finally found out about the whole Venus/Mars thing and how men , when we share/vent/complain about what we are going through, well, they want to fix it for us ! it really did wonders for me and our relationship once I found this out.
men & women just are different. As women , we complain about stuff we are feeling or going through for a variety of reasons but mostly cathartic and yea, to get sympathy in some cases. But men don't do this and assume we are telling them the problem because we want them to help us or fix it.
My BIL, though , he takes it to a whole other level. (in a bad way) OMG. My SIL does not have RA but she does have back and other pain and he is constantly telling her what to do what to eat (he even tells her what to wear) If I was married to HIM, I would have taken a frying pan to his head years ago.
not that I condone violence.
anyway I wonder if it would help some of the women to tell their husbands "I need to vent , and I don't expect /need you to fix this. Can I just share this with you so I'll feel better?" or something like that.
I sometimes do remind my husband about that sort of thing , now that I know how his male mind works.

* O/T...I also saved my sanity to figure out he really does not leave dirty clothes on the floor (etc. etc) to drive me crazy. He does it because it is simply not something of importance to him.

I would praise him for trying to help and for doing some research... then set him straight! See if you can find some kind of exercise that is safe for you now, if possible - that will make him feel good, and maybe you too. If not then of course don't hurt yourself.

But I noticed you said you and your husband hadn't even discussed your RA until recently. I find my husband is about 3 months behind my knowledge of my RA... he can only handle so much at a time, and didn't do any reading about it until after I'd been diagnosed a couple of months. Then one day he came home looking very serious and said, "I read about RA today."

But on the plus side, he doesn't try to give me a lot of advice. However, his sister is coming to visit us soon, and I'm a bit nervous. She thinks I should be doing accupuncture (which I can't afford and has never helped me with anything) and feels free to dispense with all kinds of advice. Just like my own older sister!
: )

Well, I'd like to think he meant well!

My DH is pretty well educated about RA, but once he made the same suggestion and I felt really hurt (he's also a marathon runner). I tried to leave it alone. I know he meant well. It just came out wrong.

I do fell better when I am able to move around and stretch / walk. A workout like what I used to do when I competed? Not in a million years. Do what is best for your body, and if you need rest, do that.

I do like the idea of the massage table. Maybe I need to get one of those!

"anyway I wonder if it would help some of the women to tell their husbands "I need to vent , and I don't expect /need you to fix this. Can I just share this with you so I'll feel better?" or something like that.
I sometimes do remind my husband about that sort of thing , now that I know how his male mind works. "

After 25 years of marriage, I figured this out. When I complain or vent about anything, I make a point to tell him that I don't expect him to help or solve the problem, but I need to vent. Once I explained his 'need to fix' to him, he understands.